Lot 764: RONG RONG B. 1968

RONG RONG'S EAST VILLAGE

measurements note
each 28 by 35.5 cm. 11 by 13 3/4 in. (40)

Each signed Rong Rong in both Chinese and English. This work is number thirty six from an edition thirty eight.

set of forty gelatin silver prints, iron box

NOTE

This generation of Chinese contemporary artists suddenly find themselves caught in the midst of a ferocious economic and commercial transformation of Chinese urban life. The old Beijing cityscape is systematically being torn down in order to make way for the construction of newer, taller and shinier corporate buildings and international five-star hotels. Shoved away repeatedly by both the vanishing concern for culture and the violent insurgence of modernization, artists flock to the East Village in the outskirts of the Beijing. Observing the disintegration of millennia worth of history, they scramble to record and recall as much as they can. Swiftly slipping into oblivion, the past now emerges as a gripping issue in contemporary art.

Born in 1968, Rongrong first arrived in Beijing in 1992. Attracted to the village because of its dirt-cheap rent and its inhabitants who grew to become his close companions in joint artistic endeavours, he took up residence in the East Village. Saturated with garbage and filled with waste, the village was filthy and absolutely revolting. Its putrefying nature naturally struck a shrill contrast with the hub of the ever-growing Beijing not far away. Overtime, the East Village gradually evolved into somewhat of an artists' colony, where painters, photographers, musicians, writers and performance artists alike congregated. A creative symphony came into being as they complemented each other's work, both learning and absorbing from each other and providing mutual inspiration. As a member of this tight-knit community, Rongrong occupied an indispensable role for his honest, candid photographs thoroughly and effectively documented the life and art of his fellow "villagers". He participated. He observed. He recorded. The collaboration between a photographer and his subjects, who incidentally are his creative colleagues, epitomizes the living and the performance of art.

"Beijing East Village" is a set of forty photographs where each developmental stage of the East Village phenomenon is meticulously chronicled in the form of visual images. Highlights include the performance art of the leading figures in Chinese contemporary art today which include Zhang Huan and Ma Liuming. Rongrong's lenses captured the raw, masochistic experiences Zhang himself writhed and suffered through in 12 Square Meters, 65 Kilograms and To Raise the Water Level in the Fishpond. Blurring the confines of gender identity and activating the questions of sexual ambiguity, Ma Liuming becomes the subject of Rongrong's photo essay comprised of Fen-Ma Liuming's Lunch and Fen-Ma Liuming and Fish. Photographs become the catalyst that bridges performance artists over to their audience. The composition evokes a morbid, paralyzing aesthetic while the content of the image serves a highly pragmatic purpose as testimony to the progress of Chinese contemporary art. Faithful to his renowned flair for capturing the ruins of Beijing, this set of photographs by Rongrong collects the last remnants of East Village memories before they pass him by and can no longer be retrieved.