The shiny surface of Xiamen
By Philip Hand
Photos by Yao Fan



由两位荷兰艺术家带来的装置, 摄影和电影作品展"经过"6日至22日在厦大中欧艺术中心举行. 他们运用中国或外国的素材, 诠释各自对于表面和时间的观念.

The new show at the Xiamen Chinese European Art Centre by two Dutch artists, Floor Kortbeek and Gilles Frenken, is an exploration of surfaces, some of them sited obviously in Xiamen, and some more universal.

Many of Kortbeek's video works and the stills from them displayed on the walls include water. "I like to use water and mirror surfaces in my installations," she says. One still, of a statue in the Botanical Gardens reflected in the water, has been inverted, highlighting the perfection of the reflection, and bringing to mind the uncertainty of our dealings with the world: at any given moment, are we looking at "the real thing" or some surface representation of it?

Frenken's work looks more deeply at this question. In the video piece "Cityscape" he films passers by on a sunny afternoon through a literal curtain of water: he was standing behind a waterfall. "Happiness" is a more metaphorical interpretation. An unmoving shot of a couple struggling to find the right pose for their wedding picture, it captures perfectly the tension between the flawless, romantic exterior, embodied in the bride's unmoving smile, and the boredom and confusion of the process.



Frenken is a documentary maker who has made many films for Dutch television and cinema, and this is his first time presenting work in an art gallery context. He has a great eye for the detail of human existence. Another of his video pieces shows the impassive face of a bus driver as she works her way around the city. This piece works extremely well in conjunction with his photographs, which are celebrations of Xiamen's extraordinary illuminated landscape. There is a telling contrast between the concentration and musings of visitors to the gallery, and the bus driver's complete lack of reaction to the same scenes.

The photographs, however, may be the least successful part of the exhibition. One wall is covered with an array of Xiamen landscapes. Frenken was inspired by the modernity of the city: "When the first skyscrapers were built in Manhattan, artists rushed to paint them. Tall buildings in a modern city like Xiamen create a particular rhythm of vertical and horizontal forms." While the slightly blurred effects Frenken achieves with his digital camera are attractive, the images themselves lack the interest generated by human involvement. The abstract light paintings, also created with a digital camera, are also beautiful. The artist sees in their writhing forms a reflection of the neon Chinese characters and Kortbeek's suspended dragon.



The dragon is the most eye-catching exhibit, dominating one corner of the space. It is an old dragon kite, suspended from the ceiling and curling round in a circle to chase its own tail. As we watch, it gently rotates back and forth. "I'm obsessed by time," Kortbeek reveals. "I wanted to explore how the Chinese concept of time is different to the western idea. In the west we think of time as a straight line, but in China there is the idea of time moving in cycles, returning to its starting point. There is also the idea of reincarnation, which very much ties in with that.
"I was also fascinated by the fact that the symbol of China is an imaginary creature. And, as I was born in the year of the dragon, this is also a self-portrait."

The need to deal with permanence and change (as in the title of the show, "Passing") is clear in some of Kortbeek's other video works. In one, a stone she found on the beach is painted gold and put at the mercy of the waves and the incoming tide. "Stone represents permanence, and by painting it gold, I transform it into something valuable." In another, similar piece, the stone is cracked in two. Kortbeek found the two halves fitting perfectly together, and left them at the waterline to see what the sea would do.



What is most striking about the exhibition is the different reactions of the two artists to their new environment in China. Kortbeek, with her personal themes of time and reflection, has found material here to continue in the artistic process that she has been working on all her life. Even the dragon, apparently the most "Chinese" exhibit in the show, is really used as a vehicle for working out her own thoughts on surface and time. Frenken, with his documentarist's eye, has been much more affected by what is new and different here, and has used those differences as the material for his work. As a first time "artist", perhaps this is inevitable - and perhaps Xiamen will provide him with material that lasts him a lifetime.


Vocabulary
still 剧照
invert 倒转
metaphorical 隐喻的
writhe 扭动身体
reincarnation 转世化身
telling 有明显效果的

Chinese Youth Paintings & Calligraphy Invitation Exhibition
全国首届中青年书画学术邀请展
Time: January 8-12, 2006
时间: 1月8至12日
Venue: F5, Xiamen Cultural Palace Building
地点: 厦门文化宫五楼