Through Rear Windows, the exhibition invites the viewers to reflect on their relationship with the city and the times by depicting the relationship between the hero and the outside world in Alfred Hitchcock's movie.

 

"The concept of “Looking Back” in “Rear Windows” exhibition comes from the comparison between the present and the past. The buildings representing the past depicted in Li Qing's works are invested with new functions and now become history as time goes by."

 

At a time when "immersive" has become a hot word in marketing and is popular in dramas, exhibitions and even films, artist Li Qing and curator Jérôme Sans do not avoid this popular way of viewing. With the support of Fondazione Prada, they will create an immersive artistic experience for the viewers in Prada Rong Zhai in Shanghai from November 7, 2019 to January 19, 2020. With the theme of "Rear Windows", the exhibition will explore the history and space of the century-old residence. It will show the series of works newly created by Li Qing, who takes this residence as a palimpsest of Shanghai's century-old history and reflects on the modernization process, as well as his paintings, installations, sound pieces, videos and photographs since 2010. The architecture and interiors of Prada Rong Zhai, the works of the artist and the exhibition texts, together with the viewers, will "become climatic scenes to experience the act of seeing and of being seen," said Jérôme.

 

Those familiar with Hitchcock must know Rear Windows, a classic suspense film shot from the perspective of a peeper. The theme of this exhibition is inspired by this eponymous film. Whether taking the "window" or "watching" as the theme, this exhibition echoes the film on many levels. Many pictures in the film are shot by the hero who watches the stories of his neighbor in the opposite window through the camera behind his window. It is these pictures that make up a complete movie with considerable and dramatic plots. When walking into Li Qing's studio in Xiaoshan, Hangzhou, you will stop at the floor-to-ceiling windows on both sides of the studio. Outside of the window, scaffolds and cranes on the ground are striking and dense like vivid movie pictures; the ever-changing skyline and scene of Hangzhou will constantly remind artists – Looking out of the window, you can watch a never-ending film telling the story of modern China as a construction site. "Compared with the scene outside this window, many European cities, including Paris where I live now, have become eternal monuments," Jérôme said with a smile. These scenes outside the window are depicted by Li Qing in his series of Tetris Window and Neighbor's Window.

 

As a representative of post-80s artists, Li Qing is shaping Chinese contemporary art. This generation has witnessed reform and opening up and the Internet as an antenna for receiving information. Like constantly changing plot of the outside world witnessed by the hero who is looking out of the window in the film Rear Windows, after seeing the mixed new, old, Chinese and western world, the artist constructed a silent movie on the canvas. Li Qing has been creating the "window" series since 2011, combining the old window frames collected from old houses with his paintings and collage images to form a contradictory view of real window frames and virtual scenes. This exhibition will display 8 items of the Tetris Window series. The "scene" outside the window looks like colored Tetris from a distance. When you get closer, you will find that all of them are representative modern buildings in Shanghai, which have undergone urban culture and fashion changes over a century: including Rong Zhai, which is now the long-term exhibition space of Fondazione Prada in Shanghai; the Rockbund Art Museum which was transformed from

 

Shanghai Museum; Amber Building which was transformed from a warehouse of the Central Bank of China to a cluster of international galleries; as well as the former site of Ampere Foreign Firm, which is currently used by Christie's as an office building and exhibition space. In addition to painting the buildings on the windows, the artist will also collage information in relation to these buildings, such as publicity pictures and texts in real estate advertisements. When watching these landmark buildings invested with new meanings and bringing new phenomena, the viewers are invited to think: how will art, as a new cultural capital and power, shape and update the city of Shanghai?

 

In addition to the "window" series, Li Qing also skillfully used the windows of Rong Zhai to display the video work of Neon News, so as to make full use of the elements of the window to influence the viewers' viewing mode. In Neon News, Li Qing shot and reorganized the neon characters that are seen everywhere in the city. Each character flashes for 2-3 seconds to form a text, describing the stories of three fictional Shanghainese. The screens showing these works are installed outside the windows of Rong Zhai, so that the viewer in the room can read these words when looking out of the window, like real neon lights flashing at night. Under the illusion of facing the neighbor's window and what you see is different from what you know, the viewer will have a sense of mystery, familiarity and distance evoked by the "scenery" or "story" created by neon characters outside the window. This is just like us feeling the rapid development of economy and science and technology. Everyone is promoting social modernization and enjoying the benefits. However, at some moments, we cannot help but stop to watch these changes and feel strange to the surrounding environment. This way of watching intervened by windows and deliberately created by the artist reminds us that in the movie Rear Windows, the viewer's perspective is also controlled by the pictures in the hero's camera. Through this cleverly designed form of watching, Li Qing threw a question to the viewers – How has the information in the images changed when all the images can be copied and edited for great influence? How is our understanding of the world inspired or limited by these images? In addition to watching, how are modern people's communication and lifestyle defined and shaped by the city? Through "Rear Windows", the exhibition invites the viewers to reflect on their relationship with the city and the times by depicting the relationship between the hero and the outside world in Hitchcock's movie.

 

Prada Rong Zhai will not only serve as an exhibition space, but also become part of the story, giving the viewers a new perspective and experience with its special history and multiple functions. Rong Zhai, known as one of the most elegant houses with a garden in Shanghai, was used as a private residence between 1918 and 1938 by Mr. Rong Zongjing who is praised as the "King of Flour" and his family in recent Chinese history. With the outbreak of the war and the departure of the Rong family, the ownership of this building with Chinese and western styles changed several times. It was not until Prada opened the renovated building in October 2017 that the public could have a glimpse of its decorations a hundred years ago, including gypsum decoration, wood paneling, stained glass and a variety of decorative tiles. This space carries the spiritual connection between people and things in different times, which makes it an ideal place for artists to explore the contradictions in the world and the ever-changing contradictions in Chinese society. Li Qing has imagined Rong Zhai as a space still used by its residents or their contemporary souls, suggesting the presence of the former inhabitants through artistic gestures. When the viewers pass the ballroom, the bedroom, the bathroom and move to the karaoke room, they will imagine what the people who once lived in this space saw and thought through the works. Different from performance, the exhibition creates a theater through paintings, installations and images, allowing viewers to imagine the story happening here. A small room is a karaoke room. The love songs played on TV seem to be telling the story related to this house and the city. The sound installation at the top of the room is playing footsteps, which makes the viewers wonder how the residents who lived in this space in the past would feel if they came to this exhibition through time and space. How would they feel, and how would they see themselves breaking into this house? Under the theme of "window", the viewers are not only invited to think about what happened in Rong Zhai, but also to look out of the window to think about the changes in the city and the times – The changes in the function of the Rong Zhai reflect the two-way

 

influence of the official and folk shapers on the building in different periods. This exhibition is more like an immersive scene created by the artist and the curator, allowing the viewers to experience and imagine this real and parody story.

 

The exhibition also includes works from the series of Finding Differences and Images of Mutual Undoing and Unity. These two series were presented in the solo exhibition of Li Qing: Self-cultivation in the academic research program of Zhejiang Art Museum, Nanshan 138: Zhejiang Youth Contemporary Art Initiative concluded in September. Just like the relationship between the artist, characters and viewers that Li Qing has been focusing on in his creation, the newly created Images of Mutual Undoing and Unity · Shadow for this exhibition is, on the one hand, the story of the former owner of Rong Zhai and the imaginary granddaughter told by the artist through his unique presentation in the face of history and reality. On the other hand, the viewers, with their own understanding of the Rong family and China's transformation over the century, watch and interpret the pictures with vague and wild imagination. The same kind of relationship is also found in works such as Finding Differences—Sales Lady. Li Qing borrowed the popular entertainment program Finding Differences on TV to guide the viewers to use their own experience to treat the image information differently, thus innovating the interactive mode between the viewer and the painting. The picture depicts a sales lady resting in the sales department, intended to let the viewers think about the current consumption culture and economic situation of the city, especially how the city landscape and life have been shaped by the real estate economy when gazing at the works.

 

The exhibition constantly guides the viewers to think about various issues, from how art, science and technology and economy have shaped the city, to how such a city is related to the people living in it, to how we should look at and respond to the rapid changes around us... Li Qing didn't give the viewers an answer. In November, when Shanghai's art circle is in full swing, and in this era when everyone is being pushed forward by the trend, Li Qing brings us an immersive exhibition to be viewed in a unique way, allowing us to slow down to gaze, feel and think. Perhaps, this is the way he wants to tell us to solve the issues.

 

Interview and written by/Lin Pengyuan

 

Interview with curator Jérôme Sans

 

Q: Why did you choose Li Qing? What is the relationship between his works and the theme of this exhibition?

 

A: Li Qing has been working in Shanghai and Hangzhou. Hangzhou is a very important modern city which is changing rapidly and has one of the most important art schools in China. It has many similarities with Shanghai, but its unique features allow Li Qing to interpret it from a third-party perspective. He is a representative of the artists born in the 1980s. This generation of artists is rewriting the history of Chinese contemporary art, and with access to foreign language, rapid transit and the Internet, they are active in understanding the outside world. Li Qing's works reflect contemporary artists' initiative to look out of the “window”, which is the most appropriate metaphor here. The concept of “Looking Back” in the exhibition comes from the comparison between the present and the past. The buildings representing the past depicted in Li Qing's works are invested with new functions and now become history as time goes by. This kind of observation will make people look out to the outside world which is changing as a way of examining their own lives, thinking about their relationship with the changing world around them.

 

Q: What are the challenges when holding an exhibition in a space like Prada Rong Zhai?

 

A: Rather than challenges, I prefer to consider Rong Zhai as a space where dialogues with this exhibition and with Li Qing's works take place. Rong Zhai itself bears a family story of ups and downs and a macro background of the times. At the same time, its interior decoration is rich in elements, which may be noise distracting the viewers. The medium of painting used by Li Qing seems too quiet in the fast and lively 21st century. But it is the city in his paintings and Rong Zhai and Shanghai give these canvases more sound. The exhibition is not to bring a series of works into a space for presenting them, but to allow these works to have a full dialogue with the space. For this reason, many of the works on display are newly created works by Li Qing in accordance with local conditions; the remaining are his old works. We hope to revitalize this house, restart some of its functions and break the silence. The works in the exhibition are not organized in sequence, so the viewers can explore in different rooms the way they want.

 

Interview with Artist Li Qing

 

Q: What do you think about the relationship between your works and the exhibition space Rong Zhai?

 

A: Compared with white box spaces in galleries or art galleries before, I am very excited about Rong Zhai. I have always been interested in architecture, and in creation, I pay much attention to the architectural space where my works will be displayed. In previous exhibitions, I once tried to transform the white box spaces to create a specific scene for my "window" series. Because painting is a part of architecture, and its generation is closely related to architecture. You can think about the birth of wall painting. Moreover, the window, as a medium, is a part of the building, suggesting the age of the building. Wall painting or any painting is like a window on the wall, which echoes the building itself. Rong Zhai, transformed from a private residence to a new public space, has traces of the people who have lived here and a lot of information. Therefore, my works and the space of Prada Rong Zhai in this exhibition should be seen as a whole. It is not simply the relationship between the background wall and the main body, nor is it irrelevant or contradictory.

 

To give another example, there are also a number of photographs related to residences in this work. They are taken from the former buildings in the suburbs of Hangzhou built by local residents themselves. However, these buildings have disappeared due to urbanization. I have always been interested in these civil buildings where Chinese and Western styles are mixed together, but they are disappearing. Watching

 

these photos in Rong Zhai, which has also undergone the changes of the times and the collision between Chinese and Western cultures, the viewers will have deep thoughts. There will be an interesting dialogue between the owners of these civilian private houses and the original owner of Rong Zhai, as they belong to different social classes.

 

Q: How did you come up with the idea of using window frames?

 

A: I think painting is a representation of reality, and the introduction of window frame as a medium is to create a situation where people can feel the atmosphere and scene I want to create more deeply. I put window frames into my works for the first time when I was doing a creative work with the theme of "Painting Class", exploring how painting could represent the reality. When I saw René Magritte before, I was inspired by his discussion of the paradox in painting, that is, the relationship between represented reality and fiction. Therefore, the introduction of window frames brings sense of duality: authenticity and imitation as well as reality and reproduction.

 

Q: In this exhibition, there is also a set of on-wall installations created with ready-made products, including small photos taken from magazines from different countries, newspaper cuts, postcards, maps, prints, oil-absorbing paper with oil from human faces. Can you explain what story these materials tell?

 

A: This is a fictional character. It may be a writer who lodged here. These materials reflect the various kinds of information collected by the writer during his journey. He is especially interested in portraits of different people all over the world and has collected many magazines with portraits as the cover. I covered the portraits on the covers of magazines with oil-absorbing paper. After I used oil-absorbing paper, the paper became transparent so that the faces could be seen. Therefore, in order to create this work, you need to go through a process of interacting with the characters on the covers. The writer is a bit like Vladimir Nabokov, who has been in exile since he left his homeland, like the Rong family who left the house in a hurry during the war. There is a dialogue between this work and another work on the other side of the same room, namely, different versions of Lolita. Cover binding and image selection vary greatly in different parts of the world, just like a small anthropological sample.

 

Q: This exhibition has incorporated many new media. In addition to the above-mentioned works created with ready-made products, there are also works such as photography and video. Do you want to explore more new media in the future?

 

A: I don't want to pay too much attention to form. Although there are many multi-media works on display in this exhibition, they are created with the simplest technology and based on the simplest relationship between people and images. Ultimately, I want to guide the viewers to think and interpret the works in a way of staring.