Mobile Phone Shots At "PDR Anti-Heroes", Cao Fei's First European Solo Show, at Heit Domein. Tal performed Global Heart Me's Istanbul work for the Opening . Cao Fei's Website <<< |
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Hip Hop Statement If the bitterness of life can fade from our memory, how hard it will be for us to forget happiness? Take it easy; take it simple and happy. We don't need to take burden. Nothing is important anymore. All what people need is to form a whole, to dance without care and catch the eternity of happiness in a twinkling. Selected Exhibition
Criticism Cao Fei is a young and talented female artist whose video work is attracting growing attention. Her latest video work, Hit Hop, features different people dancing on the street, posing to repetitive music. Dancing figures include students, construction workers and peddlers. They dance aimlessly, controlled merely by an unspeakable power; a pressure to survive. The work is a visual metaphor of people's ambiguous psychological reaction to the burgeoning city life. They come to the city for a better life and higher income but are subject to unfair treatment. ■ Zhang Zhaohui, The Left Wing and The Right Wing Hip Hop, is another thing, more impertinent, and more fun. Here is a builder (in helmet), an employee of road (in thick fluorescent clothes) and a policeman (with a billy). All these workers, who were shown in the heroic positions and situations in the past, here they are in the street, folding their legs, waggling their arms, with index finger uplifted and pointed, moving with the rhythm of hip hop. Different from the heroic hullabaloo of military music, it better seizes today's life, simpler and closer. A dancing cop, nevertheless, it's nicer than the carnivorous smile on lips and bayonet in canon. Times change. And, they have changed. ■ Michel Nuridsany, China, Generation Video, Paris In Cao Fei's (1978, Guangzhou) videos, various lurking facets of reality are slyly pointed out through a very personal reductio ad absurdum. After the schizophrenic Chain Reaction (2000) and the mocking Rabid Dogs (2002), Cao Fei's Hip Hop (2003) superficially appears to be an anthem to breezy mirth embodied by dance. As the artist says: "Take it easy. Be simple and happy. We don't have to carry burdens. Nothing is important anymore. All that people need is to form a [harmonic] whole, to dance without care and catch the eternity of happiness in a flash". In the video, men and women in the street, who are supposed to accomplish the daily chores expected of them as indicated by their working clothes, are one by one lured away from their activities by the captivating rhythm of some American-style hiphop music. Unmindful of their duties and social roles, most of these improvised dancers, nevertheless, appear as funny, but also rather ridiculous. This shared momentary bliss, consequently gives the impression of an ephemeral escape, or an anaesthetic taken in order to relieve and forget for a while the pain of human tragedy. The artist herself does not seem to fully trust a utopian joy that is both sought-after and at the same time unattainable but seems to say 'why not indulge in it, just for an instant? ■ Nataline Colonnello,Play Therapy ■ About Follow Me! Chinese Art at the Threshold of the New Millennium Cao Fei, a young woman from Canton, presented Hip Hop, a grow-on-you funny video where construction workers, policemen, criminals, and the homeless all stop what they're doing for a moment and dance to a hip hop tune. The tape didn't include any aghast or confused passersby, and so seemed more Captain Kangaroo meets MTV than Gillian Wearing. ■ Erin Cowgill, Paris Journal
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