My Dad Is Li Gang!
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JIN SHAN My dad is Li Gang! DAVID WINTON BELL GALLERY, BROWN UNIVERSITY MY DAD IS LI GANG! 我爸是李刚! 2012 Mixed media, dimensions variable Photograph by Shane Photography IN THE NORTH OF SHANGHAI, an old distinguished himself through what (as does the entire series) highlights much of the old city. On the other hand, sky (2011) represents a bold turn in the garden of creation, the event is industrial complex is shifting with has become his characteristic wit the impact of collective histories on it refers to the increasing adoption of Jin Shan’s installation work. Together certainly anticipation for a withdrawal the currents of contemporary China. and humor. Based on found historical the individual and perhaps suggests replicated western sculptural forms they mark a return to some of the of the “Mandate of Heaven” from the An ink pen company that long ago photographs from the Cheng Huang the dangers of historical amnesia. in the decorative embellishment of sensibilities of his 2004 series I am current power regime in China. supported the establishment of the temple book market in Shanghai, Jin Shan often draws from his personal homes as an expression of 27 Years Old. Rather than address- Jin Shan’s current installation for Communist Party is suffering decreas- I am 27 Years Old invokes a child- E PROVERB personal life as the mechanism for wealth and status by the nouveau- ing only historical the David Winton Bell Gallery My dad S ing demand for handwriting instru- hood scrapbook, featuring one historic playful commentary on the state of riche in China. Animating the symbolic issues, these recent is Li Gang! 我爸是李刚! (2012) ments, likely due to the growth of image from every year of Jin Shan’s affairs in China. In Shoot (2007), he column with labored breathing is amus- works form a body of sustains and perhaps fulfills this antici- digital media and the internet in 27 years of life. Onto each black and CHINE constructed a replica of a traffic police ing, but it also critiques the human direct commentaries pation. The title of the installation is Chinese society. Now the company is white image, Jin Shan superimposed booth that was ubiquitous across desires for wealth, prestige, and power about contemporary coopted from a recent Chinese social sustained by direct funding from the a color cutout of himself, adopting Shanghai in his youth. Assailing the indexed by such a symbol — a symbol power dynamics meme that calls for urgent social government, preserving it almost as a humorous or playful pose. With the booth in the installation are an that, through its excessive replication, within Chinese soci- critique of the corrupt financial and a return-favor and an anachronistic dissonance of the superimposition, unceasing barrage of yellow ping has become exhausted. ety. Created for the political elite of China, who believe they national monument. As production the compositions establish the dis- pong balls propelled by a specially Replication for Jin Shan is a practical Spencer Museum of can pursue their desires and act with has slowed, its buildings have opened tance necessary to comment upon designed system that recycles the strategy. It allows him to manipulate Art at the University impunity, avoiding any responsibility to new uses by a young generation of the iconic and troubling moments of balls through subterranean tunnels and subvert a realistic copy of a person of Kansas, It came for harm they have inflicted on others.* Chinese creators. This is the location Chinese history through the veil of and back into the air again. The balls, or structure for the purposes of his from the sky is a Almost directly referencing It came of Jin Shan’s studio. For an artist con- his personal history. In I’m a good for Jin Shan, represent his unfulfilled critiques. It is also a mode of reflex- whimsical explora- from the sky, Jin Shan has placed at cerned with power dynamics, politics, man, don’t arrest me (2004), Jin Shan childhood desire to enter into the ive critique, making playful use of the tion of authority the center of the gallery a reduced- When the direction of the wind When the direction of wind changes, some build walls, others build windmills. SWEEP 2011 and social change, the setting is apt. placed himself in a scene depicting traffic booth. As a restricted space of stereotype of flagrant Chinese copying Mixed media, 192 x 96 x 70 " conceived through a response to the scale, abstracted replica of a space Jin Shan situates his art on the authority, the booth becomes a meta- DESPERATE PEE 2007 of western cultural objects and explor- Christian art collections of the Spencer station connected to a glue-made increasingly contentious fault lines phor for the power of the state, and Mixed media, 65 x 13 ¾ x 19 ¾" ing the plasticity of social, cultural, Museum. A life-size silicone replica of replica of a three-wheeled cycle. Both of contemporary Chinese society. “So the balls playfully become the artist’s unseemly for a statue of an adult to be features a Corinthian column rep- and political relations. His work Sweep a policeman is used as a symbol of many absurd, terrible, and amazing little “yellow” dreams doomed to con- depicted similarly. Inserting himself licated in latex and connected to a (2010) for the Van Abbe Museum, uti- secular authority grafted onto sacred stories emerge everyday, and these tinual and inevitable failure. as the hyper-real, racial other, Jin Shan blast blower and timer. The gusts of lized both a replica of John Körmeling’s for my work. these stories become the inspiration and stories emerge everyday, So many absurd, terrible, and amazing symbolic forms. The policeman hangs stories become the inspiration for Beyond his personal history, Jin exploited the alarm or disgust of visi- air from the blower are timed perfectly Parking Carpet (1991) — a work in the near the ceiling, in a relaxed cruciform my work,” he says. A jester, a sensa- Shan also uses his body in his sculp- tors to highlight social prejudices and to simulate a labored and exhausted museum’s collection — and silicone pose. He is enveloped in a projected tionalist and an agent provocateur, tural and installation works. At the racial stigmatization within public breathing in the column. The column copies of human arms holding a repli- image of “the cosmos.” In his mouth Jin Shan and his art might be com- 52nd Venice Biennale, he installed a sculptural form. refers, on the one hand, to the pass- cated traditional reed broom used by is a planet, which he may be devour- pared to the early careers of Maurizio life-size silicone replica of himself at Desperate Pee and Shoot repre- ing away of the French colonial influ- street cleaners throughout China. The ing or creating for the surrounding Cattelan, David Cˇ erný, and, at times, Campo San Polo. The installation Des- sent a significant turning point in Jin RETIRED PILLAR 2010 ence in Shanghai, visible in decaying, work shifts Körmeling’s perhaps altru- cosmos. The cosmic image also evokes Banksy. He uses wit, humor, and play perate Pee (2007) featured the figure Shan’s career towards technically Latex, synthetic glass, blast blower, timer Neoclassical architecture throughout istic attempt to address urban traffic the Chinese concept of tian (天) — 119 ¼ x 45 ¼ x 11 ¾" as his modes of critiquing the socio- of Jin Shan with his trousers lowered, sophisticated installation works. Utiliz- congestion into a statement of the inter- sky or heaven — believed to have Souvenir postage stamp commemorating the JIN SHAN docking of the Shenzhou 9 manned spacecraft cultural and political situations of his urinating into the Venetian canals by ing complex mechanical systems and minable absurdity and futility of Chinese authority over the balance of the world with the Tiangong 1 orbital laboratory NG THE ART OF contemporary China. use of a pump mechanism built into methods of replicating and producing manual labor. A mechanical “sweep- and the mandate to validate just rulers I Jin Shan first received critical note the sculpture. An ambitious develop- cast copies of objects and people, his ing machine,” moves back and forth and condemn the corrupt. Considering have fallen from the sky. The glue of for his 2004 series I am 27 Years Old. ment of his street interventionist art recent works are hyper-real replica- along the carpet, attempting to clean the policeman as the symbol of secu- the cycle has melted during “atmo- The series established Jin Shan along- works, Desperate Pee was in effect a tions and animations of people and the carpet. However, the reed broom lar authority imbued with a “Mandate spheric re-entry,” and the space station side the growing number of contem- I’M A GOOD Man, don’T ARREST ME 2004 temporary public fountain, creating a structures wrapped in playful, critical does not remove the dirt. It collects of Heaven ( 天命),” the installation has lodged itself into a pile of melted porary Chinese artists confronting the the longstanding tradition of public exe- C-print, 27 ½ x 23 ½" playfully rude response to more famil- wit. Retired Pillar (2010) is an elegant and redistributes it along the carpet, becomes a metaphor for the increas- glue on the gallery’s floor. Cultural Revolution (e.g. Ai Weiwei cutions. With an annotation that “In iar sculptural forms of cherub statues piece delivering a simple distillation at times embedding it deeper, making ingly supreme authority of the Chinese The work references the Tian- and Cai Guo-Qiang), who open new 1984, our country was waging ‘Severe urinating into fountains.