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Indepth Arts News:
"disCONNEXION: Large Format Color Photographs by Beijing Based Artist Xing Danwen"
2004-10-01 until 2004-11-20
Kiang Gallery
Atlanta, GA,
USA United States of America
Xing Danwen, born in 1967 in Xi’an, China, earned a BFA from the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing, 1992 and a MFA in photo and related media from School of Visual Arts, New York, 2000. She currently lives and works in Beijing. disCONNEXION, the acclaimed series of large format color photographs of discarded electronic trash, exposes conflict between global technological civilization and traditional culture. In June of 2002, while traveling in Guangdong Province, Xing encountered thousands of people earning their living by recycling piles of computer and electronic trash. This black market industry, while providing much needed economic opportunity for migrant workers, is creating enormous environmental problems because of the high content of mercury and traces of heavy metals in the machinery.
The artist has written – “These machines (computers) become deeply rooted in our daily activities, replacing the old ways of doing things. Being confronted with vast piles of dead and deconstructed machines, the overwhelming number of cords, wires, chips and parts, with the clear indication of American company names, mode numbers and even individual employees, I felt shocked”.
Hauntingly beautiful, seemingly abstract, these images isolate the subjects from their social context, and in doing so emphasizes the underlying conflict between modernity and tradition. However, careful consideration of the images reveals a narrative of the darker side of technology and its social consequences
Xing’s work has recently been exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, the George Pompidou Centre, Paris, the Asia Society and ICP, New York, the Sydney Biennale, Sydney, the Wolfsburg Kuntsmesuem, Germany, and the Ernest G. Welch, School of Art and Design, Georgia State University Art Gallery in Atlanta.
Xing Danwen’s work is in the permanent collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the George Pompidou Centre, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the International Center for Photography, the Guangdong Museum of Art and the Progressive Corporation. A book of her work will be published by SCALO in 2005.
In conjunction with Atlanta Celebrates Photgraphy, the artist will speak about her work at 7:00 pm on October 12 at Speaker’s Auditorium at the GSU Student Center, Georgia State University. The lecture and reception are sponsored by Atlanta Celebrates Photography, Kiang Gallery, and the Ernest G. Welch School of Art & Design Gallery at GSU. For more information and directions call: 404-651-0489
*Currently on exhibition at Ernest G. Welch School of Art and Design, Georgia State University Art Gallery in Atlanta. “Sleep Walking” a video installation by Xing Danwen.
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