Events

Ikon Gallery

Yang Zhenzhong Ikon Eastside

Thurs - Sun 1pm – 5pm Admission is free.

Venue: Ikon Eastside is The Chapel & Sunday School, 181 Fazeley Street, on the corner of Floodgate Street.
www.ikon-gallery.co.uk

Box Office: 0121 248 07 08

Ikon Gallery completes its stunning season of work at Ikon Eastside for 2006, its annexe in Birmingham’s Eastside regeneration district, with a presentation of work by Shanghai-based artist, Yang Zhenzhong.

The desire to challenge normative notions of social behaviour informs the practices of Yang Zhenzhong’s work. He is pre-occupied with China’s intrinsic disharmony and severe contrasts, and he often touches upon taboos such as death and out-grown family patterns. His videos often start from witty ideas, using the repetition of images and the rhythmic coordination of sound, language and image.
At Ikon Eastside Yang Zhenzhong’s work is in an interesting correspondence with its immediate architectural context, enhanced to some extent by the formal qualities and the history of the spaces here.
Let’s Puff (2002) an installation, involves two video projections screened parallel to each other. On one side we see a young woman against a black background blowing air in sharp bursts towards the other side which features footage of a city street in Shanghai. Every time she exhales, the street scene is distorted into concavity, suggesting an impermanence in this urban environment, famous for its always being “on the move”.

Massage Chairs：Then, Edison’s Direct Current Was Surrendered To The Alternating Current (2003) consists of six massage chairs – each differently designed – stripped of their upholstery. Still in operation, their various mechanisms are clearly visible, the cogs and belts moving the various shapes intended to knead and gently pummel the backs of human bodies requiring relaxation. Without their padding and soft surfaces, the chairs themselves are skeletal, strangely anthropomorphic and not unreminiscent of electric chairs, especially in the stark gallery space. The sounds they emit, the whirrings and rhythmical clickings, echo ominously in this interior still haunted by its industrial past, and so they evoke a response which is a far cry from the desired effects of massage.

Spring Story (2003) a video piece, features 1,500 workers in their new Shanghai factory. It is based on a speech to the nation by the late Chinese premier Deng Xiaoping. The workers enunciate one word each from the speech in Yang’s extraordinary feat of editing.