Installation View
Installation View
Installation View
Installation View
Installation View
Installation View
A Scene at the Sea Video Screen Capture Zhu Jianlin, Zhu Jianlin, Single Channel Video, 82', 2011
A Collection of Fong Fo Forever’s Advertisements, Fong Fo, Single Channel Video, 6'30'', 2016
A Collection of Fong Fo Forever’s Advertisements, Fong Fo, Single Channel Video, 6'30'', 2016
A Collection of Fong Fo Forever’s Advertisements, Fong Fo, Single Channel Video, 6'30'', 2016On the third opening of the Light Pavilion Project in 2017, we are pleased to present site-specific installation by Guangzhou based artist Ce. Zhenhao, who will spend 10 days building up his own performing and shooting base on the second floor of Taikang Space, namly the Fong Fo Film Studio. Contrary to the former designing concept of Light Pavilion Project which primarily based on artist`s solo project, this exhibition could be described as a result of a persisted artistic collaboration of Ce. Zhenhao and his friends going by the name of Fong Fo. As a member of this team, Zhenhao prefers to view his artistic practice as an organic part of its integrated work, even though he has been playing independent role on its proposal, planning and production. The name of the team, Fong Fo, which sounds full of Guangdong vernacular taste, originates from the occasional encounter between the three young students of Guangdong Academy of Fine Arts FENG Weijing, ZHU Jianlin and Ce. Zhenhao and firefly when shooting and acting in their own full-length movie. In the next six years, Fong Fo gradually became the witness of these young people`s spontaneous cooperation, growing up and friendship. Today, although it`s still inevitable to mention the story of Fong Fo when one refers to the local "artist self-organization" and "non-institutional art practice" in Guangzhou, is utterly difficult to use these academic words to generalize and convey Fong Fo`s practices.
In 2013, Fong Fo`s first child Fong Fo Monthly was born in the Nan Ting village near the university city of Guangzhou. FENG Weijing was the publisher and chief editor, ZHU Jianlin was responsible for advertisement and distribution, BUBU focused on printing and PR, OU Feihong`s job was labor dispatch, and Ce. Zhenhao was the magazine`s ambassador. With the self-expectation of popular reading matters such as Gushi Hui (Stroy-telling Session) , Fong Fo Monthly collects the works of young artists, publishing them as picture books and texts. This publication, which`s produced and published entirely by those several young people, came out unexceptionally on the 21st day of each month, slowly spreading its sale points to the following 11 cities: Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Shenyang, Hangzhou, Suzhou, Dalian, Wuhan, Hong Kong, Hefei. Its expenses were maintained through the price of 1 Yuan per book and the advertisement of 50 Yuan per issue. Interestingly, in the four years since its birth, the decline of traditional media and the ups and downs of art business has continuously squeezed a number of professional art magazines to withdraw, but the low budgt Fong Fo Monthly which`s entirely produced by students, has with its rough looks managed to adhere to today. More importantly, Fong Fo`s also overstepping the limit of magazine publication, eagerly targeting at the larger world. Today, Fong Fo not only provides travellers to Guangzhou with accommodation at its Printing Society, but also give them the chance to participate in various self-organized activities such as reading group, job sharing and city nomads, etc. Other activities Fong Fo organized include two successful "Dice Cup King Contests" in the city Shunde, Guangdong, band performing, film shooting and so on. This time, the exhibition Fong Fo Film Studio constitutes an integral part with the Fong Fo`s film shooting practice: three completed Fong Fo films will be shown on site, part of the shots taken during the exhibition will be used on the Fong Fo Movie which will be premiered in Guangzhou soon.
If Fong Fo in a certain extent reflects the artistic ecology of Guangzhou which`s still "marginalized" compared with that of Beijing and Shanghai about the reality concerning the lack of chances provided by market or institutions in term of education and career opportunities for young artists, the point that must be wary of is that whether such a big background a decisive force for the artist's self-realization - regardless of whether it is a constraint or a stimulus - or some kind of overlap or even coupling. Fong Fo`s five co-founders are not keen to seek for a better position or take advantage of it themselves in the art world. It`s particularly reflected through their rejection of the "art" or "artistic" rhetoric system with non-sense humors or game-like settings. In fact, Fong Fo has never stopped questioning of what is the artwork, what is the exhibition, what is the fundamental problem of the artist…etc. They just have found their own object of vigilance and principles in the ongoing self-experiment and self-observation: just like that artist "A Ce" on the monthly magazine "I am A Ce" who`s dressed in casual short-sleeved but simultaneously wore a formal tie. When to fulfill the certification obligations the art world requires him to complete, there is always some uncooperative or unexpected content added by him peacefully. Nevertheless, it may not necessarily mean the complete exile of art, as Ce has put it, "I am sure that the art is about freedom and equality of social collaboration, is a kind of imagination of future.
Few examples can we imagined are the same lasting and robust compared with Fong Fo in term of free and equal social collaboration. In the 30 years history of the Chinese contemporary art has it been witnessed the birth, boom and decline of various kinds of collective creations in the name of art groups, devisions, communities, companies, uniteds and teams ... ... Today, only very few of them are still active. Here we cant go into details of its complex twists and turns or cause and effect, but perhaps it`s possible to find some threads from Fong Fo`s beliefs and principles. Fong Fo always considers the consensus of the tacit understanding of free individual as the base of work. Here are individual and collective not polarized, but naturally united with each other. Even if different understandings and interpretations of "co-work" exist, it is also in the ideal state of Fong Fo. For example, Ce describes its relationship with Fong Fo as companion, which suggests the possibility of common life or common sense. "Common" does not point to the collective, but the relationship between independent individuals.
In this sense, Fong Fo Film Studio is also an authentic personal creation presented to us by Ce. It is the doppelganger and play of the author's own experience and story in another city. Besides, it`s a writing experiment in a specific place as well. Ce, who is simultaneously the ambassador of the magazine and the protagonist of the film, mixes his passion for acting into the work methods and creative practice. The curiosity towards human thought and behavior has led Ce to fully stimulate his strange imagination in daily life, alternating with different imagined identities such as refugee, killer and peeping tom, doing things these identities should do. As the excavation gets deeper and these identities more complex, the understanding of self and people`s will troubles Ce`s soul as something extremely dark. This should be regarded as the dark side of play. When it happens, Ce will adopt another method to keep himself balanced. Writing helps him to translate these doppelgangers into text, by which the indescribable stress is eliminated. Writing is therefore homogeneous with the doppelgangers, and the writer, the doppelganger and the actor/artist, the three are also unified in the same body. After such clues, Ce has introduced the Visual Research Society which`s both text and fictional organization of performance into Fong Ho Film Studio. Visual Research Society is a column Ce serialises on Fong Fo Monthly. It`s a novel comprised of reviews and notes. The three members of Visual Research Society are unexceptionally Ce`s doppelgangers. They answer different questions and write in diverse styles. What`s more, as the main body of Ce`s doppelgangers` creation, Visual Research Society will also be introduced into Fong Fo Film Studio as special guest, a lot of its manuscripts and texts will be presented in the Fong Fo Film Studio as well. Besides, the space built in Fong Fo Film Studio is associated with the text of Visual Research Society. The three scenes (park, interior, riverside) which`re used as template of setting directly correspond to the three scenes come from the text of Visual Research Society. Aditionally, a tri-band video related to the text will also be shown in Fong Fo Film Studio. In this way, Ce manages to extend his imagination of "space" and "connection" in the practice of Fong Fo and Visual Research Society. Therefore, Fong Fo Film Studio which contains the common practice and personal work will be presented to all visitors as the pivot of performance, writing and exhibition.
Ce. Zhenhao is born in Zhanjiang in 1989. He graduated from the fifth studio of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts in 2007, and joined HB STATION at the same year. Ce is member of Fong Fo Monthly. Currently lives and works in Guangzhou.
| Light Pavilion Project |
As a site for individual project, “Light Pavilion” is initiated in 2012, based on the second floor of Taikang Space. It aims at providing a flexible platform for artists to realize their ambitions. After an interval of two years, “Light Pavilion” is restarted in 2016, embracing a vision always open to uncertainty, complicity and detournement. It’s not only a site for sensational immersion and experiential evocation but also a forum dedicated to diversity and otherness. In 2017, Light Pavilion will bring the young curators and their practice into its focus, and open to a more divisive, expanded field of contemporary art scene.
*Exhibition poster and press release:
Exhibition posterPress release
