Shi Guorui
New pinhole photography works
Exhibition: September 20 to November 2, 2007
Opening: September 19, Wednesday, 18:00 to 20:00
Grace Li Gallery is pleased to present the first solo exhibition of Shi Guorui in Switzerland.
Shi Guorui (b. 1964) is a Beijing-based artist who has established himself in the vanguard of 21st-century photography. He uses and experiments with camera obscura technologies to create large-scale pinhole photographs. He is well known for his large scale works such as Great Wall, Shanghai skyline, Mount Everest at Himalaya and Hollywood, etc. Shi is attracted to monuments for what they reveal about a culture. His work challenges perceptions through image reversal, high contrast, extreme depth of field, and scale. His black-and-white images have the visual sweep and spectacle of cinema; the views are familiar but strange at the same time. They often offer us a new way of looking at familiar things, whether it is a fast changing glittering shanghai skyline or glamour Hollywood dream machine.
Shi¡¯s artistic process is very slow and labor-intensive. A single site often can yield few than five one-of-a-kind photographs. Finding the right site and setting up the camera can take as long as a year. Exposure times can run from 90 minutes to 24 hours, depending on factors like the size of the pinhole and quality of the light. Shi deliberately chooses his slow approach, in response to today¡¯s China where everything runs at fastest speed. Early on Shi was more interested in technical details, but what is important to him now is the process. His deliberately slow and intuitive process is a spiritual experience to him. Shi is not a practice Buddhist, but sitting inside of his self-constructed camera for hours is his form of mediation and practice. In his camera, he ¡°records¡± how time washes away solid things/images in front of our eyes, clouds, traffic, airplane¡ He is interested in not only the visual image change in time and space, but also deeper philosophical meanings behind.
This exhibition in the gallery consists of five large scale works from different projects of the artist: Hollywood, Shenzhen, New Beijing.
New Beijing project is Shi¡¯s latest project (September 2007). In this project, Shi chooses ancient site such as Tian An Men as well as newest site New CCTV tower by Rem Koolhaas, and Beijing Central Business District skyline. Shi chooses CCTV tower not only because it is one of the most experimental contemporary architectures in the world, but also because it is a highly controversial project that caused disputes among different groups in China. Chinese intellectuals criticize Chinese government allows western experimentalists turning China into a big experimental ground for them. And their extremely expensive experimental projects are financed with enormous amount of government budget that should have been used for much more important matters with much higher priority, especially the urgent need to improve the living condition in vast poor remote regions. The rising breathe-taking New CCTV tower also reflects certain rising issues in China.
Tian An Men Square project was created with a ¡°moving camera¡±. Since by law it is forbidden for Shi to set up his usual camera at Tian An Men Square, he decided to rent a mid-size bus and turn it into his camera. He drove around the square again and again for three days with his camera and made the exposures during the time he was waiting at the traffic red light. In this work, the sky is dark, the crowds on the square disappeared, and the big Mao portrait in the center is blurred.
Another work, ¡°Shen Zhen, Time is money and efficiency is life¡± is a work that Shi deliberately use the reversal image and text appeared his work to mirror of our reality. In the work, there is a huge well-known slogan written by a builder of the Special Economic Zone: "Time is money and efficiency is life." The bulletin board was set up in Shen Zhen, Shekou, in 1982, where construction of the special zone began when China decided to open its door. Deng Xiaoping was impressed by the message and he repeated it to officials at an important meeting in Beijing. The message then spread all over China and became the new work ethic. At that time, this slogan has aroused enormous response in the society and has initiated people's discussion on the original socialist money view. Now, the placard of "Time is the money and efficiency is life" still stands in Shekou industrial area and it has already become one of the signs of special economic zone spirit. Ironically and purposely, this slogan on the photography is reversed.
About the Artist:
Shi Guorui (b. 1964) lives and works in Beijing, China. Shi Guorui¡¯s work has been exhibited widely in major international museums, biennials.
Shi Guorui¡¯s works have been collected by museums such as:
Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France
Funds National d'art Contemporary, Paris, France
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, USA
De Young Museum, San Francisco, USA
For-Site Foundation, San Francisco, USA
Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation, Miami, USA
Guangdong Fine Art Museum, China
Zhengzhou Museum, China
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Current museum exhibitions:
Solo exhibition
Shi Guorui: Reproduction and Refashioning
De Young Museum, San Francisco, USA
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"RED HOT" ---Asian art today from the Chaney Family collection
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, USA
For further information and images, please contact Grace Li Gallery at
Telephone: +41 44 289 5612 or
mail@graceligallery.com.
Grace Li Gallery is located at Claridenstrasse 35, 8002 Zurich, Switzerland
Gallery Hours: Monday to Friday 11:00¡ª18:00, Saturday 12:00¡ª16:00, or by appointment.
