Frivolous is the first solo show for Beijing-based Zu Jing at CPU:798, featuring two ongoing series, ‘Taxi Legs’ and ‘Blow Up’.
‘Taxi Legs’ presents the artist’s legs as their landscape upon which various objects from the artist’s immediate possessions are placed for our analysis…For the series ‘Blow Up’ Zu Jing snaps moments from every day life around her, but at a minute level of detail and abstraction.
TOP TO BOTTOM, (from “Taxi Legs”), 2006 - Present
© Zu Jing
In the vein of many socio-documentary work before hers, Zu Jing’s subject matter amplifies a generation of Chinese obsessed with the pursuit of worldly goods. Questions of identity and self are also raised. However, I’m getting slightly bored with the “socialist capitalism” concepts lately. At least this body of work provides something new.
More details here.
Exhibition details:
Zu Jing - Frivolous
8 June - 3 Aug 2008
CPU:798
2 Jiuxianqiao Lu
Chaoyang District
100015 Beijing
P.R. China
great ideea.
What do you mean by ’slightly bored with the “socialist capitalism” concepts’? I think I agree with you, but I’m not sure we’re thinking of the same thing…
It’s interesting, though, that this work, with a lot of contemporary Chinese photography, has the same sense of an attempt to deal with problems of identity in a newly capitalist society, but the view is both that and of an individual.
@Nicholas well, I think I’ve been unearthing quite a number of works so far that deals with this particular issue. The execution may be varied (some brilliant) but the theme seems to be over hashed and tired to me.
I do agree that this particular work stands out as it’s coming from a different pov; moreover, that of a woman’s. It’s also a sign of how China is shifting away from its chauvinistic roots.
Yeah, I feel like I’ve been coming across alot of work like that too… It’s just a kind of vague concept in my mind - I was hoping I could weasel a definition out of you.
“Socialist capitalism,” in my mind, refers to the idea of reconciling Chinese culture (coming out of, among other things, 60 years of communism and especially the cultural revolution) with increasingly materialistic and consumerist quality of contemporary Chinese life. But this definition is coming from someone with no direct connection to China or Chinese culture. Would you agree? Or were you referring to something else by that term?
Yep, that’s my definition of “socialist capitalism” too. A lot of younger photographers in China were born of an era where capitalism took over communism as the main ideology. I hazard a guess that many of them are trying very hard to reconcile their roots with the increasingly “Western” lives they lead now. Then again, this is coming from somebody whose only ties to China is in his genes. The so-called Chinese culture that I live in is vastly different and I often find myself struggling with words when speaking with a native. I’m much more capable of conversing my ideas in english, more than anything else!
I absolutely love these pictures, what a talented photographer…