[spectre] WANG JIANWEI : GIANT STEPS

[EAF Director]

WANG JIANWEI : GIANT STEPS
EXPERIMENTAL ART FOUNDATION
Opening 6pm Thursday 24 February to 2 April 2005
11-5 Tues-Fri, 2-5 Sat / closed Easter

GALLERY TALK by curator, Binghui Huangfu, 4.30pm Friday 25 February

"I want to experience comprehension and incomprehension at the same time,
a balance between doubt and conviction, being pulled by two extremes."
Wang Jianwei

Wang Jianwei is one of China's most significant multimedia artists. 
His video works run the gamut from documentary-style productions to 
more theatrical efforts, often exploring the relationships of power 
within China's changing social and economic landscape. Wang's 
practice crosses accepted forms of performance, new media and 
installation to initiate dialogues with his audience. Wang's focus in 
his work is less on the political but instead on relationships and 
people's interaction with science, culture and power.

Wang Jianwei : Giant Steps is a highly conceptualised and innovative 
production of three major video works: Ceremony, Spider and Square.
Ceremony is edited documentation of a multimedia performance staged 
in Belgium and Beijing in 2003. The work is founded on three literary 
texts, spanning a history of over 1,000 years - a court historian's 
annals, an oral narrative, and a traditional dramatic play - which 
all refer to the 'ceremony of the beating of drums'. Wang directs a 
group of performers in this elaborate work where history and the 
present come together.
Spider was created specifically for Giant Steps and deals with 
contemporary China - its changes, growth and the results of that 
growth. A two-part video, the first was filmed within the offices, 
corridors and boardrooms of one of China's largest computer 
surveillance companies. The second presents the audience with a 
contrasting image of motionless China.
In Square (2003) Wang presents the audience with images of the 
thousands of Chinese peasants who make the daily pilgrimage to visit 
Tiananmen Square. He explores the complex relationship between state 
and individual and between 'historical' past, 'lived' past and 
imagined future.

Wang Jianwei's international reputation has been built over a decade 
of extensive exhibiting in major world contemporary art events 
including at the Venice, Sao Paulo and Shanghai Biennales, Centre 
Pompidou-Paris, the Kunsten Festival des Arts-Belgium, the 
Kunst-Werke Centre-Berlin, and the PS1 Contemporary Art Centre-New 
York.

Curated by Binghui Huangfu.
Presented in collaboration with Asia-Australia Arts Centre Gallery 
4A, Sydney, and in association with the 2005 Adelaide Film Festival.


-- 
EXPERIMENTAL ART FOUNDATION curates its exhibition program to 
represent new work that expands current debates and ideas in 
contemporary visual art. The EAF incorporates a gallery space, 
bookshop and artists studios.

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Director: Melentie Pandilovski  Administrator: Julie Lawton
Program Manager: Michael Grimm Bookshop Manager: Ken Bolton

The Experimental Art Foundation is assisted by the Commonwealth 
Government through the Australia Council, it arts funding and 
advisory body, by the South Australian Government through Arts SA, 
and through the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy, an initiative of the 
Australian, State and Territory Governments. The EAF is proudly 
smoke-free.