The China Project

137 Three Decades: The Contemporary Chinese Collection ZHANG Peili A graduate of the oil-painting department of the prestigious Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts in Hangzhou (now known as the China Academy of Art), Zhang Peili was closely involved with the ’85 New Wave movement, which culminated in 1989 with the pivotal ‘China/Avant-Garde’ exhibition in Beijing. Zhang and his peers established independent networks and sought opportunities to exhibit and publish their work, experimenting with the languages of current international art. Before concentrating on video, Zhang’s early paintings in oil were inspired by urban modernisation and daily life, rendered in a cool, analytical, realist style described as ‘grey humour’. Since the 1990s, Zhang has focused on video art, earning a reputation as one of China’s leading practitioners in the medium. His interest in video lies in its value as a popular tool of communication and its possibilities regarding time, movement, sound and image. Zhang’s works may be viewed as video art, installation and sculpture; he is conscious of both the location of images, and of the technology that delivers them. A primary concern is the meaning of time, and that nothing stays the same. Uncertain pleasure 1996, for example, uses multiple monitors to present close-frame images of a person scratching various parts of their body. The naked body and the obsessive, continuous scratching is almost animalistic — the work exposes human vulnerability and bewilderment in the face of rapid technological expansion. Taking ballroom dancing as his subject, Zhang’s Endless dancing 1999 — developed for ‘The Third Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’ — refers to the cyclic nature of things, while hinting at the absurdity of repetitive actions and offering them as a metaphor for contemporary society’s response to change. In China, ballroom dancing has become a popular form of socialising and exercise. The voice of an instructor drills the filmed couples in dance techniques and proclaims the health benefits of this activity, interspersed with the strident chords of Chinese military marching music. Zhang records a range of perspectives in real time, suggesting many different realities and constant variation, by fixing cameras at eight points in a circular configuration surrounding the amateur dancers which capture the couples as they move in and out of view. These images were then edited into footage of competitive ballroom dancers. When displayed as part of the installation, the original filming technique is inverted, placing the viewer in the middle of a circle of television monitors, incorporating the viewer into the dance. Fragmented into infinite perspectives, Zhang Peili’s Endless dancing offers us a layered reality as the cyclic repetition of dancers, voiceover instructions and military music continues. opposite Endless dancing (stills) 1999 Video installation, 8 Betacam tapes, 20 minutes, colour, stereo, ed.1/3 / 610cm (diam., approx., installed) / Purchased 2001. Queensland Art Gallery Foundation above Endless dancing 1999 Installation view / Queensland Art Gallery, 2008 endnote Adapted from Claire Roberts, ‘Zhang Peili: Endless dancing and other works’ in Beyond the Future: The Third Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art [exhibition catalogue], Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 1999, p.44.