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19/12/2011

Maleonn

18Gallery at Bund18, Shanghai

The Studio Mobile Show is the launch of Shanghai’s most famous contemporary photographer’s latest project. The Studio Mobile is a travelling photo studio (made into a truck) that Maleonn will take from Shanghai across 55 cities in China. The concept of the Studio Mobile is to recreate the former Photo Studio inspired by one of the most famous old times portraitist: Mr. Liang.

Artist statment

I once used a Chinese idiom, “mark on the gunwale of a moving boat to indicate the place where the sword sank”, to describe my understanding of photography. In the face of the constant changes of life, a photograph is nothing but a still and silent record of a particular moment. After the shutter is pressed, that moment slipped away forever. No matter you like it or not, a photograph bears witness to what you used to possess but has lost now. Nothing artistic happen in such moments, we make beautiful yet fragile dreams, yearning for a life slightly better than the reality, while at the same time turning a blind eye to the fact that everything is fading and disappearing. This subconscious understanding of life makes everyone in the studio believe that he or she is just fabulous, and his or her life is just perfect and everything will stay on.

In fact, in recent years I have been focusing on the building of an archive of photographs, thus I was trying to recollect something with photos. Through this process I want to examine the illusion caused by photography, an illusion that makes us comfortable and warm. It seems to me that this is the most amazing job made by a visual artist. It is worthwhile to pursue a mirage just slightly better than the reality and capture it in the most flamboyant manner.

About five years ago, I started collecting old photographs produced in studios in China in different eras. The sense of ceremony and intimacy of having photographs taken in a studio is also lost in the process of the technology. I believe that certain things can never be replaced; the exchange of emotions between strangers in photography studios and commitment to perfection are the more worthwhile.

With this in mind, I started a plan in early 2011 that I should establish my own photography studio. I should use the old way of taking photographs as much as possible and I also wanted to introduce interesting and fanciful scenes. My initial move was to set up a photography studio in my to-be-relocated studio, an establishment you can see in my artworks called Maleonn Photo Studio, presented in this solo show. After the photos got published in a magazine, many friends outside Shanghai told me that they hoped I could move and launch such studios in different cities. Then, I came across the idea of a mobile studio: loading all my photography apparatus on a truck and drive it with my five friends to various cities along the highways, so that I can personally shoot photos for my friends and for those who love my artworks.

As I understand it, the ultimate goal of art is to provide comfort and happiness of a certain sort to the audience. I always hope that I am able to do something for the people with my own efforts, to create artworks that can translate into their welfare rather than command high prices at auction houses.

I want to engage further into the reality and let more people enjoy the pleasure of art. I want to help others with my actions and my works, to prevent them from being engulfed in the sea of ubiquitous materialism.

This exhibition features 40 pieces of “photo studio style” artworks that I have done in the past three years. They are all using pose shooting, installation works and a litter of props and costumes. In this sense, this exhibition is also the pilot project of the Mobile Studio.

Opening 20 December, 2011 from 6pm to 9pm

18Gallery Shanghai - Bund18
18 Zhongshan East Road (E1), 4F, Shanghai
open everyday from 11AM to 9PM
Admission free

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