Premiering “Duilian” with Wu Tsang
Arthub is delighted to announce the world premiere of Duilian*, a multi-media exhibition that is part of a decade-long research project by visual artist and filmmaker Wu Tsang.
Duilian is commissioned and produced by Spring Workshop, with co-commissioners Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève for BIM 2016, Arthub, and 9th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, with support from Nottingham Contemporary, the Fonds d’Art Contemporain de la Ville et du Canton de Genève and In Between Art Film. Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Isabella Bortolozzi, Berlin.
The film installation will premiere March 12th, with a special event happening during Art Basel HK. Arthub looks forward to hosting the Shanghai premiere of Duilian later this year. Check back for more information!
EXHIBITION OPENING HOURS
Duration: March 13 – May 22, 2016, 12 pm – 6 pm
Tuesday to Sunday and Public Holidays
ART BASEL HONG KONG SPECIAL OPENING HOURS
Duration: March 22 – 26, 2016, 10 am – 7 pm
DUILIAN PROGRAM DATES
Exhibition Opening: Saturday, March 12, 2016, 12 pm – 4 pm
Art Basel Opening and special event
Thursday, March 24, 2016, 12 pm – 1:30 pm
Venue: Spring Workshop, 3/F Remex Centre, 42 Wong Chuk Hang Road, Aberdeen, Hong Kong
About Duilian
The multi-media exhibition at Spring Workshop next month centers on Duilian, a newly-commissioned experimental film that interprets the life and writings of the famous Chinese revolutionary Qiu Jin (秋瑾 1875–1907) through visual and martial arts. Duilian is the result of Wu Tsang’s two three-month residencies at Spring Workshop in 2015 at the invitation of Mimi Brown, Founder and Defne Ayas, Curator-at-large. The project is developed with Christina Li, Director, and produced by Jessica Kong, Communications and Programs.
Combining magical realism, documentary, and kung fu genre, the film portrays a side of Qiu Jin that is rarely seen in the mainstream, focusing on her private life and a community of strong women who surrounded her. Duilian decodes and deliberately “mistranslates” official narratives about Qiu Jin, as a way to question the role that language and storytelling play in the construction of history.
A legendary feminist, Qiu Jin was executed as a traitor during an uprising against the Qing dynasty, which ultimately led to the end of centuries of imperial rule and the founding of the Republic of China. Nowadays her portrait is displayed in the Communist Museum in Shanghai, a rare female hero amongst men. Her revolutionary life and poetry are widely celebrated in novels, films, and plays, yet the details of her personal life are less examined. In 1906, Qiu Jin left her husband and family to study abroad in Japan, where she joined the “Mutual Love Society” (共爱会), a secret group of radical sworn sisters (金兰姊妹)—which in the film is embodied by a group of martial artists (“sword sisters”), who initiate Qiu Jin into their world of desire and revolution.
The film integrates choreographed performances with narrative scenes featuring the main characters Qiu Jin (played by performance artist boychild), and her intimate friend, the calligrapher Wu Zhiying (吴芝瑛 1868-1934, played by filmmaker Wu Tsang).
The story takes as a starting point the fact that queer histories—particularly those of queer and trans people in Asia—are often invisible or coded, and must be “read between the lines” of official history. Tsang’s ongoing project explores the mythologies that queer people construct out of remarkable histories such as Qiu Jin’s and Wu Zhiying’s, and the desire to manifest alternative narratives through film.
* Duilian refers to a form of couplet poetry (对联), and it also refers to the wushu category of sword-fighting (对练). Both forms evoke dueling aspects: in poetry, the words are rhymed in tonal opposition to each other, and in wushu, a pair of martial artists engage in a dance of swords.
Find out more about Duilian here.
About Wu Tsang
Wu Tsang is a Los Angeles based artist, performer, and filmmaker. Her projects have been presented at the Tate Modern (London), Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), Migros Museum (Zurich), the Whitney Museum and the New Museum (New York), the MCA (Chicago), the Hammer Museum and MOCA (Los Angeles).
In 2012 she participated in the Whitney Biennial, Liverpool Biennial, and Gwangju Biennial. Tsang’s first feature film Wildness (2012) premiered at MoMA’s Documentary Fortnight (New York) and won the Grand Jury Prize for Outstanding Documentary at Outfest (Los Angeles), and her recent short film You’re dead to me premiered on PBS and won the 2014 Imagen Award for Best Short.
She has received grants from Creative Capital, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Contemporary Art Foundation, the Center for Cultural Innovation, the Tiffany Foundation, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Frameline, and Art Matters.
Find out more about the artist here.
