LIVE IN BEIJING

太懒，先放一张吧……￣ε ￣メ

http://www.laterhorse.com/

http://itunes.apple.com/app/mindo/id355182443

最后一个作品Vegas，虽然最后展览的时候被改成No wave，但我更喜欢叫她Vegas，那是一段生命中宝贵的记忆。

Dark, narrative-less video art that somehow has stumbled into existentialism.

The Wuhan-based Waza group’s video ‘Las Vegas’ gropes its way towards the future and will most certainly become an art-house classic in the years to come. It mops up the psychic afterbirth of the Olympic period’s post-partum depression.

Though they may not know it, these Chinese artists have stumbled into existentialism and Beckett’s ‘Waiting For Godot’ without the benefit of the master himself.

No doubt about it, Waza has made a very boring flick. Instead of ‘New Wave’ it’s ‘No Wave’. There is almost no dialogue. Everything is dark – or hazy. There is no narrative build. You keep waiting for something to happen, but almost nothing happens. You are constantly poised on the precipice of an event that never arrives.

All you see is dull, tasteless apartment interiors, inane street scenes and bumbling strolls through craggy forests. Intimate encounters are staid and alienated. A half-clothed girl writhes for her boyfriend. He barely notices.

When they finally couple it’s only for a brief second before they head off in opposite directions, barely acknowledging each other – as if they’d bumped in to one another on a crowded city bus.

The neo-angst twosome, dressed in overcoats, later collapse inside a greenhouse, a hothouse environment of induced narcolepsy.

Because there is not much history in video art, and not much money either, there are no expectations and no constraints. A bunch of burned out painting students threw up their hands, tossed away their brushes and began to film what really matters. And, as in all art, that’s all that ever counts. Ellen Pearlman

Arario Beijing Chaoyang Brewery, Beihuaqu Lu, Anwai Beiyuanjie, Chaoyang district (5202 3800);www.arariobeijing.com).Open 10am-7pm Tues-Sun 朝阳区安外北苑街北湖渠酒厂国际艺术园

Happiness is a warm gun

This first solo exhibition of WAZA is a courageous attempt to break down the “conventional” understanding of artwork and new media art in China. This exhibition is the rebellion of the WAZA against “trite art”, and visual tradition; it will open much and probably destroy even more. It is the final outcome of years of hard work with almost no financial support.

The main work in the exhibition, KUYA, can be generally categorized as a multi-media work, but here the “multi” actually implies all the newest media known in modern times. This work is WAZA’s greatest achievement yet: it is not a film and it is not a video work, rather it is a set of countless possibilities. Though KUYA will have daily screenings, just like in movie theaters, it is important to understand that it is not a movie, but something that can be deconstructed and reconstructed differently each time; this “one” work is replaced by a “set”, which conveys the main message of the show.

Along with their newest work, WAZA’s other invention – [SV (Sound Video)] will be shown. The [SV] indicates the combination of sound and imagery derived from it. It can be deconstructed into two concepts: the space created by the sound, namely “sound space”, and the image produced through describing the sound, namely “sound image”. The ambiguous combination of the two forms the so-called [SV]. The method of display chosen is merely one of the many ways this work can be shown.

Finally, there will be a demo version of a work that will be launched separately in near future, CHI, which has been magnificently “hacked” into PSP devices, each one of them showing different chapters. This set of works is going to display an irrational world full of sin, in which CHI attacks a city by himself. And that also stands for WAZA’s fearless and intransigent declaration of war to “trite art”.

Duration: July 1st – July 29th | Opening: July 1st, 3 – 7pm
July 1st: First Screening at 3:30pm | Second screening at 5:30pm