A while back I came across this 360° Interactive Panorama film – ’40+4 Art is not enough. Not enough!’ – an installation and collaborative media art project by Davide Quadrio, filmmaker Lothar Spree and video artist Xiaowen Zhu, reflecting on the philosophical and political voices of contemporary Chinese artists.
The multimedia installation and film puts together a series of questions, personal, public, irreverent and naïve, to understand what is going on in the mind of the forty artists who live and work in Shanghai, who are see and defining the contemporary art scene in this cosmopolitan city, in the fast-paced changing realm of globalisation, urbanisation and commercialisation. They are asked to consider the role of the artist in relation to the external world, the social consequences of their work and the international market’s effect on traditional modes of artistic production. It offers a dynamic anthropological insight into the urban panorama of modern Shanghai…documentation of a growing scene. The documentation of Chinese contemporary art is something that is slowly being acknowledged…realised in a sense that it needs to be done to help carve it’s art historical grounding and critical future. This film is a definitive attempt at doing this…and, as someone deeply embedded in the Chinese art world, I wish there were more projects out there like it.
Initially the project was presented as a four-channel video installation and has been shown in Strozzina Art Space (Florence, Italy), Sainsbury Center for Visual Arts (Norwich, UK), Museum of Contemporary Photography Chicago (Chicago, USA), Shanghai eArts Festival (Shanghai, China), and ArtBasel Hong Kong 2013. Interviewed artists include: Shen Fan, Zhang Enli, Shi Yong, Yu Youhan, Zhou Tiehai, Huang Yuanqing, Xu Zhen, Huang Kui, Yang Fudong, Lu Chunsheng, Liang Yue, Liu Jianhua, Li Shan, Zhang Ding, Tang Maohong, Wang Xingwei, Song Tao, Lao Jin Feng, Hu Jieming, Xiang Liqing, Yang Zhenzhong, Ding Yi, Luo Yongjin, Qiu Anxiong, Xu Longbao, Wang Tiande, Zhu Julan, Song Haidong, Gu Wenda, Li Xiangyang, Gong Ya , Li Lei, Liu Dahong, Wang Nanming, Yu Xiaofu, Zhang Peicheng, Qiu Dexiu, Yang Hui, Zhang Haitian.
Rachel Marsden's Words 