Presenting:
Rest is the Best Way of Revolution, 2014, performance at Ota Fine Arts Tokyo, 20’17”
Act of God, performance video, 9’29”
On the occasion of screening, we match an article written by Du Keke for these artworks in 2014.
text/Du Keke
Tang Dixin divided Ota Fine Arts into two sections, one is for his performance Rest is the Best Way of Revolution. On the opening day, artist dressed the white uniform like a doctor in China and set himself in a situation of 1980s Chinese hospital. On the wall, Chinese characters “Rest is the Best Way of Revolution” was painted red on the wall. The audience sat on the bench devoutly and waited to be casted, in order to have a good rest, after the artist said in Japanese “Today, please take a good rest.”
The other section is a normal exhibition space, where it presented several video artworks and paintings, including his famous video where he jumped into the metro rail and lied on it, Act of God, during Shanghai Expo in 2010. This video became virus one the internet then and Tang was arrested and got a detention of 10 days. Body is the most common media in Tang’s art creation. No matter lying on the metro rail or bury someone in the ground, the artist set people in an extreme situation to impact and irritate the audience (including the second audience who watch the video). At the same time, Tang puts his hands on political issues both intentionally and unintentionally. For example, jump into the metro rail was during Shanghai Expo, the person he buried in Chongming Island was a Japanese person who currently lives in Shanghai, and the portrait of a young boy who stretched his eyes with his fingers was titled Yellow Peril.
If “body” in Tang Dixin’s artworks is a closed, ridiculous being, or regard it simply as the origin of irritation, the subtle social political references in his artworks didn’t lead the significance to enter it, on the contrary, it always lingering outside the artwork structures, formed another closed loop.
Rest is the Best Way of Revolution represented this feature perfectly in this exhibition. In a set-up of 1980s Chinese clinic, the red slogan and the whole visual reference didn’t recall any childhood memory for the Japanese audience, neither would they regard it as a sarcastic elements, which as a result, magnified the drama conflict. The green layer on the wall set a border of the stage, where the roles were already set up. “Rest is the best way of revolution” acted like a stage instruction, guiding the whole scene.
On this aspect, Rest is the Best Way of Revolution has nothing to do with rest nor revolution, so what about the experience the audience received? Maybe it won’t subvert our knowledge about contemporary art. Only the white bondage on the arm will remind the audience another painting Stretch (2014), where the limbs tangled and conjoint together without a reason.
This article was originally published on Artforum.
About Artist
Tang Dixin (1982) was born in Hangzhou, China. He graduated from Shanghai Normal University and now lives and works in Shanghai. His recent solo exhibitions include ‘Tang Dixin’, Aike Dellarco, Shanghai, 2017; ‘Dog Bark’, Ota Fine Arts, Singapore, 2015; ‘Mr. Hungry’, AIKE-DELLARCO, Shanghai, China, 2014; ‘Tang Dixin’, Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo, Japan, 2014. His recent group exhibitions include: ‘Zhongguo 2185’, Sadie Coles, London, Great Britain, 2017; ‘Mountain Sites: Views of Laoshan’, Sifang Art Museum, Nanjing, 2016; ‘200’60’’, chi K11 Art Space, Shanghai, China; ‘My House Is Your House’, SPSI Art Museum, Shanghai, China, 2015; ‘Jing Shen – The act of painting in contemporary China’, PAC Museum of Contemporary Art, Milan, Italy, 2015; ‘10th Gwangju Biennale’, Gwangju, South Korea, 2014; ‘Rendering’, AIKE-DELLARCO, Shanghai, China, 2013; ‘ON|OFF China’s Young Artists in Concept and Practice’, Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, China, 2013.
Special thanks to Aike-Dellarco for the kind support. Without their help, we can’t make this screening happen.
