Tao Hui: Three Videos Compilation
Duration: 2018 July 2-July 31
Opening hour: Mon-Fri, 10:00-18:00
Venue: 3F CREATER SPACE, No.888 Huashan Road, Shanghai
Presenting:
The Dusk of Tehran, 2014, Colours And Sound Single Channel Video,4’14”
Talk about Body, 2013, Colours And Sound Single Channel Video, 3’45”
Joint Images, 2016, HD video, color, sound 14’27”
About the artworks:
The Dusk of Tehran, 2014, Colours And Sound Single Channel Video,4’14”
In Iran, many rights of women are suppressed under the name of protecting. Women are always in passive position in the frame of marriage law. Entertainment is forbidden for women, and female singers are not allowed to give open performance. Hong Kong is a traditional place advocating for freedom, and women in Hong Kong may freely pursue their own love, dream and lifestyle. I chose an Iranian girl, who worked for a theater, to recreate a dialogue in a private car of the deceased Hong Kong female icon Anita Mui (aka. Mei Yanfang, CN: 梅艳芳) and her fans in a concert. The dialogue shows the free pursuit of Anita Mui on love and marriage. I am attempting to seek for the differences and commonalities presented by people from different nations and areas in the same story frame, and also hope to show the attitude of Iranian women toward life and emotion through such a kind of performance and review the free space for people under the governance of totalitarianism.
Talk about Body, 2013, Colours And Sound Single Channel Video, 3’45”
The artist addressed in her own room as a Muslim girl. She used the article written by a physical anthropologist, which is analyzing his own body as the chief source. He analyzes the body structure, physiognomy characteristic and blood lineage gene objectively in detail and fabricates a ceremony scene according to the authentic materials. He attempts to abandon emotion and focus on his own body, resist the over-spiritual confinement by traditional religion and try to make a balance between them.
Joint Images, 2016, HD video, color, sound 14’27”
Ten representative TV clips were selected to play continuously and randomly as the background screen, including news, TV series, entertainment and reality shows, etc. Standing before the screen, the actors have recreated the TV scene and synchronized the lines, building up a dislocation sense of true and fake, and revealing an absurd combination of reality and virtuality. From the perspective of collective memory and group experience, he expresses his thinking in “mass media” and “acting”.
About the artist
Tao Hui’s works focus on culture and identity through using various mediums including video, objects, and installation. His signature approach is to create bizarre and exaggerated scenes and metaphors to question the tenets of urbanization and hegemonic thinking. His works are visceral and provocative, yet enlightening and always imbued with a strong emotional power and a sense of “displacement”, inviting the viewers to confront themselves with their own cultural history, ways of living and social identities.
For the online screening of Tao Hui, please click here. For the offline screening and panel talk with Alvin Li, please click here.
