Art Gallery

Accomplished Disillusionment

REVIEWED BY CHARLES LONBERGER

The video installation recently on display at the Hammer Museum in Westwood by Chinese artist Chen Qiulin was consistent in its critique through contrast technique.

In her first video, Peach Blossom, this contrast was melancholic and defeatist, from the groom trudging while holding flowers through the reality of industrial construction, representing the isolation the artist feels in adhering to her ideals, represented by the flowing sleeves of colorful costumes, which were contrasted against the gray squalor of their surroundings. The video was schematically divided into sections, and distinctly echoed vintage Antonioni. The mournful ambiance was emphasized by a downcast bride and, especially, by its desolate soundtrack.

The second video, The Garden, was less subjective, but more pungent, concerned as it was with the hustle and bustle of community life, implicitly defining existence as work. The busy community labors under the watchful eye of the police.

Into this document of industrial squalor is injected contrasting images of color, with women washing fabric in the river and particularly by the fragile beauty of bright pink flowers on their way to market, the primary leitmotif of the video. Once again, brightness is a relief from its drab surroundings.

Implicit in its criticism, muted, yet unmistakable in its contrasts, Qiulin’s selected works are social criticisms disguised as conceptual art.

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