Zu Jing — Frivolous

8 June – 3 August 2008

Press Release

PDF icon English and Chinese language

Works

Zu Jing — Taxi Legs © the artist. Zu Jing — Taxi Legs © the artist. Zu Jing — Taxi Legs © the artist.  Zu Jing — Taxi Legs © the artist. Zu Jing — Taxi Legs © the artist. Zu Jing — Taxi Legs © the artist. Zu Jing — Taxi Legs © the artist. Zu Jing — Taxi Legs © the artist. Zu Jing — Taxi Legs © the artist.

CPU:798 are proud to be able to present the first solo show of the Beijing-based photographer Zu Jing in our new space in the 798 Art District.

We will be showing selections of works from two ongoing series by the artist, ‘Taxi Legs’ and ‘Blow Up,’ presented in a series of installations in the gallery space under the title ‘Frivolous.’ The state of being: ‘Frivolous’ reflects the artist’s subject-matter and it’s relation to her life. The works document discrete aspects and moments of her day-to-day being, mediated and interpreted by the methods of photography and the ultra-selective and introverted viewpoints involved.

‘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. The installation for ‘Taxi Legs’ is in two parts. In the first space small transparencies of the photographs are scattered at random around the room, below eye-level, somewhat avoiding the gaze of the viewer, maintaining their own self-sufficiency. In the back space a taxi seat is available for the visitor to use and peruse the photographs provided there, while they accompany the artist on her journey.

Taken during the gap periods, travelling between destinations, these pictures are the result of a state of slight boredom developing in the affluent contemporary Chinese woman. The focus is not outward, beyond the body, into the surroundings, but on the artist’s body and the objects she carries with her at any one time, these extensions of her body. This externalised-internalisation indicates the growing self-obsession prevalent in a certain class of this rapidly developing, ‘socialist market economy.’

For the series ‘Blow Up’ Zu Jing snaps moments from every day life around her, but at a minute level of detail and abstraction. She pushes her camera to it’s technical limits to create close-ups of things which she encounters. The images become indistinct, less presenting a meaningful subject and more a record of the camera’s limits.

The images are partially obscured themselves by a large inflated balloon filling the space between the two walls of the long thin space in which they are installed. Nonetheless the light from them filters through and the balloon can be pushed aside to reveal the hidden elements, suggesting that there is a possibility of meaning becoming revealed, although this may just lead to more questions.

Biography

Zu Jing lives and works in Beijng, China. For further information, see the artist’s page on this website.

Gallery Opening Hours

Tuesday to Sunday, 13:00–18:00 (closed Monday)
(or by appointment)

Contact

Edward Sanderson
Tel/Fax: +86 13621078560
Email: cpu798@gmail.com