Location One is pleased to announce artist-in-residence Xu Tan’s forthcoming
debut solo exhibition. Qing Hua Porcelain (blue and white) is a new video/sound installation in which Xu Tan explores the differences in American and Chinese cultural
interpretations of what is "real" and what is "fake". Although each culture
distinguishes and classifies "real" from "fake", neither clearly defines
these terms.
Xu Tan draws his inspiration from the teachings of philosopher Chuang-Tzu
(circa 250 BC). Successor to Lao Tzu and a foremost proponent of Taoism,
Chuang-Tzu presumed that no matter how alike two things are, a difference
between them can always be found and, conversely, no matter how different
two things are, one can find a similarity between them. Objective
similarities and differences do not justify any particular way of
distinguishing between things.
Qing Hua Porcelain (blue and white) consists of 4 videos in which Xu Tan
posits that situations play out differently depending upon location (in this
case China versus America). Location relates to culture, hence culture plays
a role in how one understands the world, interprets "true" and "false,"
"authentic" and "fake". Through a dialogue with an American female friend,
Xu Tan asks the question: "What is true love?" hence shedding light on
diverse interpretations of love. Xu Tan further addresses differences
between "real" and "fake" by recording specialists of Qing Hua Porcelain -
perhaps the most well known Ming China- who discuss the notion of
"authenticity" and the controversy around authenticating these imported
ceramics. Can anyone be certain that a piece is genuine or counterfeit?
Qing Hua Porcelain (blue and white) was partly inspired by a line from the
Chinese short novel, Dream of the Red Chamber that says, "if you turn
something fake into something real, then the real things start to lose value
becoming fake".
Xu Tan was born in Wuhan, Hubei Province in 1957. In the early 1990’s he
joined the "Big Tail Elephant Group" in Guangzhou with Lin Yinlin, Chen
Shaoxiong and Liang Juhui. The aim of this group is to develop critical
strategies for negotiating the rapidly changing economic and cultural life
in China.
Location One is particularly grateful to the Asian Cultural Council for making Xu
Tan’s residency at Location One possible.
Location One (www.location1.org) is a new not-for profit art center, which
fosters the convergence of all types of creative expression. We maintain a
gallery space suitable for every form of performance and exhibition, and
within this space, multimedia net-broadcasting facilities that allow us to
webcast a 24-hour stream of both live and archived events. Our International
Residency Program invites artists from other countries to experiment with
emerging technologies. Location One is an exploration space for continual
creative discovery.
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