happy new year!

Thanks to the Great Fire Wall, I will no longer update this blog.
please refer to my official website for all future and past information, works, exhibitions, news etc.

http://www.shen-yi.com

Happy New Year to you all!

"Young Fellow Upstairs" Times Art Museum Beijing

This curators nominated show opens June 12th 2010, exhibition will continue until July 8th. I will be showing two videos, a work titled "Sun and Moon".

www.timesartmuseum.com

beijing-bangkok-berlin-vienna-budapest-zurich-metz-paris-tel aviv - paris -beijing

I love traveling, the preparation of a journey, the expectation of an adventure, the expected unforeseable encounters. but now i am half way through this extended journey and I am actually exhausted, the fear of stepping into another plane pushed me in switching to train rides and adding a few stops and connections, as if shorter rides could ease the feeling of actually being on the road. So far I haven't yet been in a place where I could understand the language that street people speak. I look forward the minute I arrive in France...tomorrow, monday, tuesday.... one of these days... but the beauty of being on a journey is also being able to stay in solitude and complete isolation of some sort. I continue looking out the coffee shop window.

Life is about noticing without being noticed.

hesitation

I often find it frustrating to see how much hesitation there is in my work. It is one thing I can not hide, yet unwilling to talk about, of course, like everybody, I would like to advance with no hesitation at all. Especially in China, most of the work I see has no trace of hesitation. I sometimes wonder, "how the hell they do that?" Then, other times I say to myself, "maybe they hide their hesitation".

If I have to choose between mal-honesty and hesitation, then hesitation is not such a bad trait.

If there are no more confusion in life, maybe the interest in art will vaporize as well.

Yesterday, an artist friend told me the same thing, and quoted Kafka, "Life is hesitation". I suddenly realize that I am not so crazy or inferior all this time, I am just living my life.

Exhibition "Things" Opens at Baden Art Center, Vienna, Austria.

Dongxi - Things

Cathy Busby. Can / Kerstin von Gabain. A / Chan Kok Hooi. Malaysia / Elaine W. Ho. USA / Ulrike Johannsen. A / Johann Neumeister. A / Ma Yongfen. VR China / Evelyne Leblanc–Roberge. Can / Ralo Mayer. A / Shen Yi Elsie. VR China / Michael Yuen. Aus & Yam Lau. Can /

Vernissage: Fr, 21. Mai 2010, um 18 Uhr
Performance: DICA - Donkey Institute of Contemporary Art

Ausstellungsdauer: 22. 5. 2010 - 4. 7. 2010

Memories of My Studio I -Black Bridge (2008-2009)

Part of living in China is about constant renovation and constant moving of studios. I don't know of anybody who is not looking for a new studio; or worried about his/her new studio being torn down by the government; or just moving into a new studio and yet to renovate. Here are some images of my first studio which lasted for exactly one year, but served me well.

My memories to Black Bridge No. 2 South.


This also where I had my construction tent to preserve heat in the winter.

Song Zhuang Museum Experimental Film Exhibition

Please join me for the opening cocktail at 4:30 pm April 18th, 2010. Art Museum of Songzhuang.

Soldier Crab of Photography (a participating exhibition)

Soldier Crab of Photography

by Gu Zhenqing

Soldier crab, a crustacean of the order Decapoda, in a shape midway between shrimp and crab, is categorized as arthropod of anomura. In order to seek asylum and protect itself, soldier crabs make a living in empty shells or hollow objects. To them, living in shells of others’ could be referred to as humble living in pigeonholes and could even be endowed with an attitude of seclusion.

Soldier crab’s life habit makes it a tenant who pays no rent. This great reputation comes from its arbitrary look, with big claws waving around clamoring for swallowing the meat of mollusks and occupying the shells to themselves. Actually, soldier crab is merely an environment-friendly resource recovery worker who lives in the empty shells abandoned by dead Mollusks. Shells are good-quality “economical housing” inherent to shellfish and after their death, the shells become relics. When soldier crabs found the empty shells, they would simply tidy them up, then make good use of these wastes and turn them into their inseparable home to be carried wherever they go.

Soldier crab is a symbol and when referred to photography, it delivers a message of analogue.

Photography used to be one abandoned shell for scientists and inventors after the Industrial Revolution. However, it was found by some early photographers and artists who came live in these shells just like what soldier crabs do. These people have actually boosted up a burgeoning new art form of photography in virtue of a new technology. Cameras and photography, although not inherent to human beings, but once encountered, becomes an inseparable spiritual home to many.

To many contemporary artists, photography is considered as a zero-rent housing. It was out of enterprise that they choose photography as the art medium but not out of seeking self-protection. Once artists move in this pigeonhole, they are blessed with a tool to sharpen their insight and to broaden their imagination and at the same time, they get for themselves a shield, a shield that defends the rights of breaking through and surpassing the boundary of art. Some people go in and go out with ease while some go in but never get out. Photography is merely a shell, but it changes one’s life style. An inclusive shell it actually is, which breeds private emotions of artists and their subjective thinking. When chose photography as the art medium, artists have to play by its rule and their emotions and thinking will be more or less expressed by the images and symbols that appeared in photos. By doing this, artists could be entitled photographers, and from now on they put on their shoulders a tough solid shell that is constituted by cameras, techniques and many professional procedures of making a photo that in all, made this shell not that easy to carry.

To stop time and to fix space became one way of approaching the essence of on-the-spot photography. However, when this chosen art medium really gets in the value system of artists and becomes their tool of reaching out for the ideal, the concept of photography turns for real to be the shell or rather home for artists. Photography, being an invaded domain by artists and possessed by their extreme life style, does it still have other possible way of presentation?

The new generation of shutterbugs nowadays is no doubt the diluted presence of artist and photographer. Camera to them is like cell phone to most of us, which is carried wherever they go whatever they do. Whenever the interest is aroused, they would simply pull out the camera and click. The came of the age of graphical information and the floods of images we see everyday everywhere are partly due to the socially cultural activity of these shutterbugs who enjoy exposing their works over all social media and arousing public interest. To see and be seen blindly, this collective unconsciousness hidden in the camera and photography reflects certain deep-rooted human nature.

The image produced by the medium of photography has long been sheltered in the shell of mechanic duplication and image perfection technology which could easily perpetrate visual cheating. Photography constitutes an artificial world that exists in parallel with reality and reality subject. Sometimes when reality goes by and reality subject dies away, the image of which stays along and becomes the elements that call up and sculpt old times.

SOLDIER CRABⅠ: AN EXHIBITION OF THE FIRST ANNUAL CAOCHANGDI PHOTOSPRING

OPENING: SATURDAY, MAR. 13, 2010 15: 00 - 18: 00

VENUE: LI-SPACE, RED NO.1 - F BUILDING, CAOCHANGDI, CHAOYANG DISTRICT, 100015 BEIJING, CHINA.

DATES: MAR. 13, 2010 - APR. 25, 2010

GALLERY OPENING HOURS: TUESDAY - SUNDAY 10:30 - 18: 00

PRESENTED BY: BEIJING LI-SPACE CULTURE & ART CENTER

ARTISTS: CHEN KAKEONG, CHEN WEI, CHEN ZHOU+ZHANG XIAOJING, DENG DAFEI, GAO FENG, JIN SHI, LIU BO+LI YU, MA YONGFENG, MAO YU, OUR MAPS, PENG YUN, SHEN YI ELSIE, SHI WANWAN, WANG SISHUN, WU DAXIN, ZHAO HUASEN, ZHANG LEHUA, ZHANG LIAOYUAN

CURATOR: REN DADI, DENG DAFEI

ARTISTIC DIRECTOR: GU ZHENQING, YANG LI

PUBLIC PROMOTION: JIANG TIANJIAO, ZHENG LINGFEI

CONTACT US: jiangtianjiao2009@gmail.com; +86-10-51273272

Flamingos' Wonderland 火鸟

A travelling solo exhibition of SHEN Yi Elsie sponsored by The French Culture Center/Alliance Francaise China will start March 15th, 2010 in Dalian with a vernissage.

Here is the schedule:
March: in Dalian
April: in Jinan
May: in Xi'an
June: in Chongqing
July: in Hangzhou
August-Septembre: in Beijing

Contact infoshenyi@gmail.com for details of openings of each city.

A Broken Onion

I never thought my happiness and well-being would one day depend upon a small green onion.

For those of you who are still not familiar, it is an application, which will allow you to access the Internet using an IP address being bounced back and forth within the community. The project called TOR (http://www.torproject.org) was started to help people in areas of heavy network surveillance to get round the firewalls and communicate to the outside world. The network relay is constructed by volunteers who donate certain bandwith and leave their computers on just for the purpose of helping people in places like China and Iran. The icon of the software takes on a form of an onion, which quickly become a must-have household item in many Chinese homes.

Today, life in China is described and distinguished as inside and outside the Great Fire Wall. Often times for a very simple research type of question, I am forced to turn on the little green onion and climb over to the other side of the Wall. That is not at all sensitive information, but merely things like an artist showing me some images on flicker or a video on youtube.

A certain number of this vast population has become very good at climbing this GFW; and encountering a friend on the other side of the wall is also like meeting an old friend embraced in sunshine.

This morning, as I open my computer, I found a broken onion, left me in the complete darkness. Especially after the brief demonstration on Chang’An Road yesterday carried out by Aiweiwei and some artist friends from my village, I was dying to find out the follow up stories.

Being over 2500 kilometers away from Beijing, and heartbroken from the pictures I received the night before of a real attack to our village held by local mafia, I couldn’t help but burst into tears, quiet certain that the government shut down the Onion; and I could only imagine what happened to those people. After all, a demonstration with no application can easily throw you into jail.

After a reboot of the computer, my dear onion magically revived itself. I am now back into my daily life maybe not described as happily but rather willingly.

In writing down these words, I hope that all of you who live in a normal world outside the Great Fire Wall would consider becoming a relay to the TOR Project. As the government is constantly closing know IPs, which are used as bridges. You have no idea how much we depend on your willingness to help. Please refer to details on the Tor website.

http://www.torproject.org/docs/tor-doc-relay.html.en

Feel free also to forward this email to your friends who might be able to help.

Many Thanks,

On behalf of a large population who live on a little onion on the other side of the WALL.

Red Underwear Year

As the Chinese New Year falls on the same day as Valentine's Day, many businesses had to make a very important choice as which Holiday to honor this time. In Kunming, the choice has been very clear to everyone. A big dinner with family bombarded with fireworks is lot more traditional and patriotic than cheesy chocolate cakes with candles reads "5-2-0", which in Chinese sounds very similar to "I love you". Many guys might be saying, "Thank God, I would not have to spend Feb 14th with my girlfriend this year!" With the perfect excuse in hand, roses are even exempted this year, since all shops including flower shops are shut all day today. I literally had to steel some bread and cake out of a bakery late last night.

Learned from some hard past experiences, we decided to stock the home fridge with fresh vegetables, fruits, milk, eggs and all other necessary alimentation, almost enough for an entire week. In reality, not all restaurants are closed during the holidays; the bigger ones actually choose to stay open, as Chinese have grown to celebrate New Year's in nice restaurants avoiding all the hassle of hosting huge group dinners at home. Even hotels are booked during this period for night entertainment such as poker games and MaJong challenges together with Karaokay on the side. Yet, to actually consume and enjoy these facilities during this time might just be a bit too much effort to my regular taste.

This New Year is the year of tiger, for those who were tigers, this new year is believed to be a year filled with difficulty and threats. In Chinese, we call it "Ben Ming Nian", to somehow tone down all these misfortunes and dangers in this coming year, we tigers are to wear red underwear from now on during the entire year until the last day of the year. My old aunts has started burning incense and praying for me in temples since few months ago. I have no idea if the red underwear would actually do anything, but somehow, disrespect this old tradition on the first day of the year seemed a little unwise, even for me.

As I walked into the first lingerie shop last night on our way back to the apartment looking the proper gears, I saw this interesting expression on my boyfriend's face as if to say, "cool! hmmmm....but did you want to surprise me for Valentine's Day or are you trying to get me to buy you something?" As I walked into the second one and then the third one, looking through only their red underwear section, the interesting expression on his face became even more interesting, silently but I can read what he wanted to say, " okay, red is nice, but I actually prefer black!" "Are you crazy, I am only buying a red underwear to save my life! You have no idea how dangerous it is going to be for me, this year of Tiger!"