Venice
2013 - Arsenale: 55th International Art Biennale; National Pavilions
– China. With the title Transfiguration
the Chinese Pavilion is curated by Wang Chunchen. Shu Yong is one of seven
artists representing China at the Biennale. Shu Yong’s installation work, Guge
Bricks is laid out on the lawn of the Virgin Gardens. Each tile contains a cultural term or phrase
that the artist collects. They are
written both in Chinese and English that show living concepts, popular culture,
and social changes of today’s society.
Chinese
Pavilion. Artist Shu Yong uses the Guge Bricks, above, bilingual texts as a
strong social-presence to convey his concern about social and cultural ecology.
Chinese
Pavilion. He Yungchang’s Seawater of Venice installation also placed in the
Virgin Garden, are bottles filled with seawater and labeled with the artist’s
signature and numbers. They are
displayed on nine Chinese tables, in which the audience can use their own
containers such as water bottles to fill with seawater from the seawater tanks
placed on the other side of the tables.
The audience can exchange the seawater bottles with the bottles left by
the artist and label their containers with their signature with the stickers
prepared by the artist. Just as seawater is for all humans, the seawater
bottles here are also public and can be shared.
For six months it will be an audience involved art piece, in which
people can share the seawater of Venice, as long as, they follow the agreed
rules, in order to represent equality and harmoniousness in the modern world.