Song Tao
dal 11/9/2003 al 26/9/2003
Segnalato da
11/9/2003
Song Tao
ShanghART Gallery, Shanghai
The Floor - life is wonderful. The black and white photos, mounted on normal wooden parket floor plates and sealed with hard varnish, cover the whole gallery floor. The walls of the gallery are all empty, in simple white, while intricate stories are exhibited under the feet of the audience. Stepping on the floor full of photos, every visitor is looking for the memory of his/her own.
The FLOOR
Life is wonderful (September 12-26, 2003)
Some sentences about the exhibition on September 12th:
Yesterday afternoon, when I was working on the frames for my certificates of
merit, the gallery called me, and asked me to write something about this
exhibition.
At 2:30p.m. Today, Li Qing and I got onto a taxi. The Nanpu Bridge was as
jammed as usual. At 2:50p.m., due to the construction at the cross of Xujiahui
Road and North-south Viaduct, I had a little dispute with the taxi driver on
which way we should take. At 2:52p.m., urged by road and civil construction
workers, we unloaded the speakers and the power amplifier in a hurry. I tried
to call the boss of Luwan Labor¡¯s Cultural Palace, but no one answered. We
carried the speakers and the power amplifier into the building, but the staff in
Luwan Labor¡¯s Cultural Palace told us, impatiently, that the boss was not
there, and asked us to continue to call. I was put through, and the boss said
that he would come in a few minutes. I called Chen Hao, who told me that he was
shopping for video and audio lines and would come here as soon as he picked up
the paint sprayer. One hour later, there came an employee, who helped us to
move the speakers and the power amplifier to the contest stage. We waited
another while, but the boss was still out of our sight. The gallery called
again, asking me if I finished that article. I said no, and I was going to
write it tonight. I said sorry because probably I couldn¡¯t make it very long.
And the Gallery said, ¡°Please, please finish it tonight, because tomorrow will
be the deadline.¡± I promised that I would send it by email as soon as I
finished, and that I would not miss the deadline. Then we started to play video
games, while waiting for the boss. After another half an hour, the boss was
still missing. But Chen Hao came, with lines and paint sprayer. We played
another half an hour of games, and went to Small Chili Restaurant for our
dinner. When dining, the boss called, stating that he would arrive at 7 or 8
o¡¯clock. After dinner, we went to upstairs to continue our games. I fell
asleep at 8 o¡¯clock, thinking about the article about this exhibition in my
dreams. At 8:30p.m., the boss was late again, so we wondered in the game room,
tokens at hands. The boos arrived at 9:30p.m.. We had made an appointment at
3:30p.m. today, to set up the contest stage and to test audio equipments and
video wiring. But the boss asked me to come at 9:30p.m. Tomorrow night, and he
promised that he would set up the contest stage according to our requirements.
We spent another ten minutes to describe our expected contest stage in our mind,
and went home afterwards. On the way back home, I was eager to write this
article. I arrived home at 10:30p.m., and started to write this. Now, it is
done.
__________
Song Tao, born in 1979, is a young artist of ultimate vitality. His works
represent his feelings about the world, with easy and comfortable methods, from
perspectives of the young generation grown up in the fast developing China of
the 1980's and 90's.
Between January and July of 2003 Song Tao has taken nearly 20,000 photos of
daily life in Shanghai. Of them he chose about 3,000 photos to create his work,
the 'Floor', for ShanghART's first major exhibition of this autumn.
The black and white photos, mounted on normal wooden parket floor plates and
sealed with hard varnish, cover the whole gallery floor. The walls of the
gallery are all empty, in simple white, while intricate stories are exhibited
under the feet of the audience. Stepping on the floor full of photos, every
visitor is looking for the memory of his/her own.
Song Tao, born 1979 in Shanghai, studied at the Shanghai Arts & Crafts Institute
and participated at different exhibitions in Shanghai and Beijing.
(Opening: September 12, Friday, 6pm, ShanghART Gallery at Park 97, inside Fuxing
Park)
Image: Song Tao
The Floor-Life is wonderful. b&w photos, floor parkett, 60m2, 2003
ShanghART Gallery - Contemporary Chinese Art since 1996
2a Gaolan Rd. Shanghai, 200020, China, tel: 86-21 6359 3923 fax: 86-21 6359 4570