The Review of White Rabbit’s Latest Exhibition

The Review of White Rabbit’s latest exhibition - the reshaped Chinese landscapes of the 21st Century Jiayi Chen z5194640 In ancient China, Chinese artists retired deep into the mountains and indulged amidst the natural landscapes with misty-wreathed mountains and peak, tumbling waterfalls, and gurgling streams. They attempted to seek the solid consolation of mind and be liberated from the dark officialdom or the misfortunate destiny. Just as a classical Chinese shanshui poetry 'Drinking Wine' by the Eastern Jin dynasty poet Tao Yuanming (365-427 AD) says: Settle in a place where many people lived But far away from the noise of cart and horse Ask gentleman how able so Heart far place self-partial Pluck chrysanthemum east hedge down Leisurely look south mountain Mountain air day night beautiful Fly birds together return This here has a clear meaning Wish argue already neglect speech Shanshui is a Chinese term that literally translated to 'mountains-water', referring to the natural landscapes or scenery. The ancient Chinese people held the beliefs that immortals and mythical creatures took shelter in the deep mountains where the landscapes were stunning but untamed by human hand. In the eyes of the ancient Chinese, it is their natural world combined the beauty of nature, the relaxed and cheerful heart, the harmonious relationships of yin and yang. In modern society, in order to raise the urbanization development level, mountains are bulldozed to make room for the many-storied building; the forests are cut down to erect the expressway supported by reinforced concrete. The continuously upsurges rise of industrialization results in the rivers littered with the contaminant and polluted by chemicals; The diamond sky shrouded in fog and haze suffers an eclipse. We are no longer in that era where the natural world is natural. It becomes supernatural. That is the contrasting world the artists shown in SUPERNATURAL.

SUPERNATURAL, which unveiled at the White Rabbit Gallery in Sydney from 7 September to 3 February 2018, was fantastic. This exhibition featured 40 works that 32 artists made between 2012 and 2018. Artists created expressively multiple mediums embracing photography, painting, video, textile, and sculpture, which made the exhibition become a diverse and vigorous world. The artists employed the traditional approaches of ink painting and calligraphy, the novel materials, and the state-of-the-art techniques to create works of art, aiming to reshape the natural landscape. More importantly, they reflected the current tendency of China in terms of the air pollution, the water pollution, the littering and landfills, the climate change, the deforestation, and the never-ending urban sprawl. Their works of art were used in contemporary visual semantics to take a new look at our vulnerable world. Personally, 'supernatural' could be construed as a world, a transcendence of the ancient natural world: everything super-high speed, super-high technology, super-high buildings, and super-high pollution. The exhibition was laid out across several rooms from level ground to level 3. There was a large suspended installation art on the ground floor. Another large-scale installation art was placed alone on the third floor. The first floor and the second floor displayed a variety of forms of artworks.

Admittedly, it was an excellent choice to display a large group of the models shaped in insect-winged men hanged overhead. Because they brought a fresh eye to visitors who just stepped into the pavilion and gave them a kind of desire to go on. Additionally, as the final work of art of the exhibition, the ocean consisting of cloth was spectacular, which led up to the endless aftertaste to the exhibition. From my perspective, the first and last settings served as an impressive reminder successfully. When it came to the exhibits on the first and second floor, there were a great many of impressive works of art, such as a photographs series revealing a blue haze pollution of Chinese metropolis, a cracked bamboo cast in bronze, mountains made of knitted wire, a classical landscape painting incorporated 20,000 tiny digital images, etc. Deviation by Li Shan (b. 1942) 2017, cast silicone, plastic, natural and synthetic fibres, paint, dimensions variable On entering the space, a swarm of giant insects suspended over our head caught my eyes. They were fiery and large in number and size as if flying upon me liked a ton of bricks. These 10-hybrid insect-winged men with enormous bulbous eyes, sharp mandibles, outstretched wings, slender and prickly segmented feet, and a human body with an exposed male genital gave me a sense of malevolence. They were cast in silicone, and made of plastic, natural and synthetic fibres, and paint. Most interestingly, the nude male figure was based on the artist's own body. Li Shan, the artist of this aggressive artwork, brooded about the study of bio-technologies and genetic engineering and was a pioneer of 'bio-art' experiments in China. He held an audacious idea about realizing his creations of hybrid insect/animal/human creatures to be prototypes physically.

The title of this work of art was Deviation. It meant a human interbred with a dragonfly highly evolving into a superior species: the beastly predators could fly backward at breakneck speed, and their 360-degree piercing eyes could detect a spectrum over people's minds. This kind of super specimen reflected the main idea of the artist that biotechnology can turn us into extraordinary creatures. Just as Li Shan said: ‘I hope my artworks can eliminate the human superiority complex. ' Actually, he did. When standing beneath the insect-winged men, I felt insignificant. This artwork plunged me into meditation. From another point of view, this kind of creature evolved from an insect into a human-like being resulting from the ecological and chemical pollution. The insects adapted to the changing circumstances for survival. This alien birth could be a threat to humanity, a punishment for nature. It raised an alarm that humans were supposed to revere the power of nature and everything in the world. Authenticity Temporal Memory: Shanghai by Chen Wen-Chi (b. 1969) 2015, birth wood, acid-free card, Baryta archival photo paper, Ri Xing Type Foundry lead type, stainless steel case, 16 pieces, dimensions variable Go up the stairs to the first floor, I saw the photography series first. The title of this artworks series was "Authenticity Temporal Memory: Shanghai".

The 16 pieces photos created by Chen Wen-Chi installed in the museum case respectively. I mistakenly believed that they were the historical relics because the photographs were black-and-white which looked old; the characters were printed from obsolete metal type. The photos made with a mobile phone presented the ordinary life of citizen: residents walking through the cluttered alleys and up and down the stairs, an alone man standing under an umbrella who was seemed like waiting for someone, an lonely woman standing by the river and keeping the head down, all kinds of clothes hanging on the power lines, the eaves of the traditional buildings silhouetted against the sky. The text, which recorded the artist's diary and poems about the feeling towards Shanghai, conveyed a deep feeling. I liked one of the poems written by the artist about the Legend of the White Snake: A boy called Xu Xian met his wife under the umbrella White Snake and Green snake are just passing smoke/cloud there is an iron tree in blossom outside the Thunder Peak Pagoda Monk Fahai finished off the teacher and student friendship The Legend of the White Snake was a well-known ancient love story in China. It employed drama and fairy tale and presented a sweet and sorrow legend of love that defied the golf of heaven and earth. The corresponding photograph depicted a scene that a man standing on the stone road held an umbrella and kept looking back. This poetry struck a chord with me. From the author’s diary, we were positioned in a world of ‘alternative facts’ and the fading memories. I felt the author ’s nostalgia for the old Shanghai and his regret for the changes of the hyper-modern metropolis. In a fast-changing society, the past and the present overlap, and even memory is suspect. New Classic of Mountains and Seas Part3 by Qiu Anxiong (b. 1972) 2013-17, video animation, 25 minutes In the next room, it was a small and dark environment like a mini theatre and a projector played a video. I sat down and waited for the video to begin. Everyone was silent, and the mood was dark. The film began with a first-person perspective. There were many mist-wreathed buildings with black and white colour.

Then moving away to a third-person perspective, a man covered by octopus tentacles which were worn as anti-pollution masks on his face. A one-eyed creature became surveillance camera monitoring people's movements all the time. An interesting and ironic scene was that people with octopus masks ran on dog-driven treadmills. On the surface, they were struggling. Once uncovering the truth, they lived in illusion in fact. Some traditional architecture from Shanghai could be seen, juxtaposed with the upturned eaves of traditional Chinese buildings, now just regarded as a symbol of a meaningless past. When the episode began, the ethereal voice made me feel goose bumps. The lyrics were that: human lives without a root as if they are ashes floating in the air the life swing in the wind you are no longer the same as you are before My understanding of the lyrics was that mountains were moved to make a way for the high buildings and the historical relics were teared down. We pursued the development of technology and economy but discarding our natural beauty and traditional culture. However, we would suffer from the punishments from nature. And the fog and haze were the evidence. This artwork was created by Qiu Anxiong who spent 12 years studying the New Classic of Mountains and Seas trilogy. As the introduction sheet says, ‘during this period, China's urbanization and technological transformation are getting faster and faster, and Qiu Anxiong's work reflects a fast-developing world. ’ His inspiration came from the Shan Hai Jing translated into English as ‘Classic of Mountains and Seas’, a Chinese mystery novel with a history of 2,000 years. It covered extensive contents from geography, bestiary to interesting stories. In this video animation, he used thousands of his own ink paintings and employed state-of-the-art technology to present a ramshackle city. The mountains and sea had become concrete, steel, and glass. And the supernatural creatures had become the technology products. The artist says, ‘the monsters made by humankind; the audience knows what these monsters are, and what these monsters have brought or will bring to us. ’what these monsters have brought or will bring to us.

Thus, this artwork sounded the warning bell for us in depth. The above-mentioned works differed in artistic style but revealed the same theme which was relevant to this exhibition's central idea. Although the exhibition had a profound practical significance, it combined numerous dark sides which gave me a kind of too negative feeling. It was likely to mislead the visitors to create an illusion that China was a terrible country. There was no denying that China had severe pollution problems in some areas, but it had effortlessly dedicated to improving the environment in recent year. We could not close our eyes to reality with its positive aspects. I identified an unsatisfactory aspect of this exhibition. As a first-time visitor, I failed to recognize there were also another two floors had exhibitions since I could not find some signifiers which were helpful to indicate this information. Until the next time I visited the exhibition for the second time, I had realized the fact I missed a number of works of art last time. Therefore, there existed a weakness of this exhibition that lacked noticeable indicators guiding fresh visitors to other exhibition areas. Overall, this was an amazing exhibition showing a bizarre and motley world which merged the Chinese traditional culture and the reality of contemporary Chinese society by various mediums and artistic styles. Even though the shadowy and supernatural world they created was virtual in form, some scenes could be identified in the real world. This exhibition undoubtedly reminded human being that we factually lived in such a catastrophic world and it served as a wake-up call for humanity to make an effort to change that result.