The artists in China Urban are each uniquely notable for the manner in which their work explores the conflicts, tensions and symbolic shifts underlying the creation of a "new" China, one dependent upon the initial and irrevocable reconfiguration—and often destruction—of China's architectural and cultural traditions. Using a wide range of media, the artists in China Urban address the constant flux and transient nature of the new Chinese city, examining the city as a complex of both real and imaginary spaces. China's socioeconomic upheaval has sacrificed and displaced histories, traditions, and localities in favor of the creation of an economic superpower. As the artists featured in China Urban demonstrate, the reality of urbanization is every bit as psychological and internal as it is physical and environmental. Each artist presents us with engaging meditations on China's new urban condition.

China Urban features work by: multimedia artist SONG DONG, Beijing; filmmaker and multimedia artist YANG FUDONG, Shanghai; painter and filmmaker CHEN SHAOXIONG, Guangzhou; painter LI YAN, Beijing; multimedia artist CAO FEI, Beijing; urban calligrapher TSANG TSOU CHOI (the KING OF KOWLOON ); multimedia artist YIN XIUZHEN , Beijing; painter and installation artist CHEN QIULIN, Chengdu; painter YUN-FEI JI, Brooklyn; and multimedia artists XIE XIAOZE, Pennsylvania and CHEN ZHONG, Beijing.

Painter Yun-Fei Ji and multimedia artists Xie Xiaoze and Chen Zhong explore the cultural and environmental consequences of the Three Gorges Dam project, a massive construction project that has forced millions of Chinese citizens to abandon their ancestral homes—and their traditional modes of life—in the name of modernization. The urban calligraphy of the "King of Kowloon" also addresses the pervasive problem of displacement, on levels both public and personal. Cao Fei (under the alias "China Tracy") interrogates China's urbanization by constructing her own bustling digital metropolis, RMB City, within the popular online program Second Life. RMB City creates a space of otherness from which to critique China's crisis of dislocation—and as an accelerant to the possibilities of the "virtual" extension of the self in the wake of rapid environmental change. Li Yan's large assemblages of exquisitely rendered oil paintings re-present media images of political protest and cultural struggle, focusing on the urban environment during the time of the recent Beijing Olympics. The character of the urban nomad—both real and imaginary—becomes a representative of change in many of the artists' work, as in Yang Fudong's depiction of a band of "bohemian aesthetes" wandering the city, exploring the possibilities of subjectivity in a radically changed China, and in Yin Xiuzhen's biographical sculptures that collapse personal and geographical history within the space of a suitcase. Other visions of the urban landscape possess a dreamlike, hallucinatory quality, evoking philosophical questions related to the artists' experiences of global, "non-native" landscapes and cultures. These questions seep through Song Dong's film Scottsdale, a shimmering meditation on self and place, and in the films and photographs of Chen Quilin, whose visually lush narratives explore the symbols and rituals of China's vanishing urban villages.


 

ABOUT THE CHINA URBAN COLLECTIVE
China Urban is curated and produced by the China Urban Collective,
a collaborative organ initiated by Reed College Assistant Professor of Art Lisa Claypool and Douglas F. Cooley Memorial Art Gallery Director Stephanie Snyder, and including the students of Claypool's Art in Contemporary China course (currently underway at Reed College) and curatorial research assistant Molly Dilworth (NYC). China Urban originated several years ago, in a series of conversations between Claypool and Snyder, initiated by Claypool and shaped by her extensive travels in China. The curatorial project was brought into the context of the Reed College classroom, and the China Urban Collective was born. The students of the Art in Contemporary China course are working on all aspects of the exhibition.


EVENTS AND PUBLICATIONS
An ongoing series of lectures, artist talks, and film screenings will occur from April 1 through early May 2009. The China Urban Collective is producing a color catalog for the exhibition that will arrive by the close of the show on June 7. Please check the Cooley Gallery website for updates and information related to events and special projects. Press releases will be issued for individual events.




LENDERS TO THE EXHIBITON
SONG DONG and YIN XIUZHEN courtesy of the artists and Chambers Fine Art, New York; YANG FUDONG, courtesy of the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York and Paris; CHEN SHAOXIONG, courtesy of the artist and Wedel Fine Art, London, England; LI YAN, XIE XIAOZE and CHEN ZHONG courtesy of the artists and Morono Kiang Gallery, Los Angeles and Platform China, Beijing; CHEN QIULIN courtesy of the artist and Max Protetch Gallery, New York; and YUN-FEI JI, courtesy of the artist, James Cohan Gallery, New York, and a private collection.