The Writings of Today are a Promise for Tomorrow
Zheng Guogu is one of the trendsetters of contemporary Chinese art and an internationally acclaimed artist. Even though a central figure of the Chinese art scene, he lives in his hometown, the remote Southern Chinese city of Yangjiang in Canton Province. There he cooperates with local artists and amateurs. One such cooperation is known as the Yangjiang Group.
Zheng Guogu and Yangjiang Group (Zheng Guogu, Sun Qingling and Chen Zaiyan) made their international renown with their original installations, performances and events that are as much inspired by traditional Chinese culture and local folk traditions as by contemporary social practices and tendencies, by mass media and video games. One focus of their work is the practice of calligraphy.
To give a short account, Zheng Guogu and Yangjiang Group were present with their large scale installations and performances at the Venice Biennial 2003, the Documenta XII 2007, the Lyon Biennial 2009, or the Auckland Triennial 2013.
At Palazzo Morosini, Zheng Guogu and Yangjiang Group show three different bodies of works: First, in the main exhibition space, “Das Kapital Football” and “God is dead, the Euro dropped to the level of the Dollar, but the Renminbi is still very much alive.” This installation is part of the so-called “After Dinner Calligraphy” events of Yangjiang Group and consists of large-scale calligraphies written on spot after a collective dinner. Further on display in the main space is “Last Day – Shop of Frozen Entities”. For this piece the artists acquired an actual bankrupt shoe shop, covering and thus sealing all the items of the shop with wax. A set of 11 painted flags, part of the series “The Brain Nerves”, will be installed in the other rooms and outside the Palazzo. These flags show diagrams of brain activities of historical figures, like for example Francesco Morosini, Marco Polo or Karl Marx, and modern personalities such as Gina Lolobridgida or Pier Paolo Pasolini. Finally, two videos by Zheng Guogu “My Teacher” (1993), “Planting Geese” (1994) and a documentary on the artist ”Minds Without Attachment” (2015) are on display.
All the works reflect wittily upon the aspects of commodification and capital as determining factors in contemporary Chinese society. Redundancy and stagnation are juxtaposed with the aspects of energy and energy flow. The artists propose the free flow of energy – and not the flow of capital – as an alternative base for contemporary society. Calligraphy here is not only understood as an artistic practice but also, and most importantly, as a social and political one.
