Art Melbourne 2012 - Melbourne's Affordable Art Fair

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Yangtze River Delta.City Symphony

 

Exhibition Review

Mathieu Borysevicz, "Yangtze River Delta. City Symphony"

Ausin Tung Gallery
Wednesday 26 October – Saturday 19^th November

Mathieu Borysevicz, Changning District Orchestra (Lil’ Punk Bridge and Bottle) video still, 2009

Ausin Tung Gallery have graced Melbourne with an ‘out side the box’ program and gallery ethos; they want to educate us and are bringing new and provocative work into our artisphere in order to kick start some much needed dialogue.  Especially poignant in their young life is their current show, Yangtze River Delta. City Symphony by Mathieu Borysevicz.  Borysevicz lives between Shanghai and New York and has an impressive international exhibition catalogue including the ICA, London and the Israeli Centre for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv.  His work is also in a number of institutional collections including Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago and the Bernis Centre for Contemporary Art.

 

For anyone with knowledge of contemporary China, this exhibition is not aesthetically surprising.  However, it has been put together through a time consuming interest to document social realities of contemporary culture and urban development.  The Yangtze Rive Delta is one of the most urbanized places on earth, Shanghai’s urban sprawl falls within this Delta.  Changning is one of nine districts in the Shanghai metropolis, home to some 20 million people; it is a predominantly working and middle class area with a large population of ‘invisible workers’ woven into the fabric of society.  These are people who come from the country side in search of better jobs and lives but who have no official place and therefore no wealfare, many of them collect recyclable rubbish to make ends meet.  Changning District Orchestra is an ode to this urban space. 

 

Mathieu Borysevicz, Changning District Orchestra(triptych- third movement) video still, 2009

 

Presenting itself as you enter the main gallery Changning District Orchestra is a triptych video work.  3 frames tell stories of the juxtaposed and consumer driven lives of the people feeding off the city.  Accompanied by the sound track of the city itself, the work is an urban symphony.   The bottle, usually an incidental object in everyday life, is used as an off centre focal point, relevant and prominent in all the strands presented.  Its symbolism spans the screens as an object of love, life, consumerism and livelihood as other everyday scenarios are played out around it.

 

The back wall of the gallery contains 3 extracts from a project called Learning from Hangzhou which is a reflection of urbanization in Hangzhou.  Chosen by the New York Times as one of the ‘Best Architectural Books of 2009’ and awarded the prestigious SAM (Deutsches Architekturmuseum) Book Commendation in Frankfurt, it is a privilege to have this on show in Melbourne.  Each extract is a photo montage; one of Chinese characters and wall writings in various states of deterioration, one of shop front mannequins in various glamour poses and another of female portraits.  These portraits are taken from already existing images on billboards or from posters around the city; some complete with reflections of nearby buildings, or the obvious glimmer of the plexi covering.  Together, these faces give you a slice of Chinese glossy culture, yet without offering any memorable characteristics other than a somewhat outdated aesthetic, not unlike many Chinese mega cities.

 

Also within this small but hard hitting exhibition are two short films:  SARS, A Love Story,  which tells the story of the artist and his wife trying to make sense of the situation they find themselves in as an inter-racial couple together in a shocked and scared China: “The film is our personal testimony of panic, love, and desperation in a time of extreme uncertainty.”  Taian Lu is a visually enticing tale of a young couple about to have a baby, also touching on cross culturalism, obviously a topic close to the artist’s heart, and China’s contemporary social environment.  Both are definitely worth spending the time to get through, both very different but connected through strong themes of culture and love.  

 

Ausin Tung Gallery are certainly pushing the boundaries with this show; a little clever and a little unexpected, it is relevant and interesting.  This show is designed to provoke questions, it is for those prepared to step outside the normal confines of ‘pretty pictures’ and explore something new.

 

Tamsin Roberts, Director Art Melbourne

Posted by Art Melbourne at 3:56 pm