Cheap Way of Loving Souls – He An's solo exhibition

Opening: November 30th, 2008, Sunday, 15:00
Exhibition dates: November 30th to December 7th, 11:00 – 18:00
Venue: BizArt Art Center
4/F, Bldg 7, 50 Moganshan Road
200060 Shanghai


He An displayed four surveillance cameras in the living room, the kitchen, the bedroom and the bathroom of an inhabitant of Wuhan, filming unceasingly 24 hours a day furnitures he uses (such as: living room's chandelier and TV, bedroom's wall lamp, kitchen’s sink, bathroom's washbasin). He then collected similar kind of objects in Shanghai and exhibited them in the gallery. Through an interactive system, furnitures of the exhibition in Shanghai function as the person in Wuhan uses his.

(translation from the Chinese version of art-ba-ba)

"A drunk Chinese punk, wearing a wrinkled leather jacket. In the misty night, standing by the street a glass bottle rolls on the side, towards a pile of garbage, where an old lamp was thrown. He and the lamp stand in the urban mess. The punk recalls the bonfire of gypsies."

I am not sure whether this kind of description really corresponds to He An's idea of Romantism. Some people already called him the Chinese "cheap punk". A little bit violent, wearing metal earings, not against the governement, not bloody, not self-mutilating, he has a certain rough sensibility.









In the exhibition space, a projection showing the various rooms of the person in Wuhan, two lamps, a TV monitor, a chandelier and a washbasin are displayed.









The person in Wuhan turns on his light in the bedroom and the lamp in the exhibition simultaneously works.