- This event has passed.
Tears of Eros
Friday 30th October 2009 – Saturday 7th November 2009 , 12:00am to 11:59pm
‘Tears of Eros’ is an exhibition of the work of critically acclaimed Chinese photographer Tian Taiquan. The exhibition showcases a series of photographic installations from a collection of Tian’s past and present works. His self-described ‘Revolutionary Pictures’, provide provoking imagery and commentary of a lost but not forgotten time in Chinese history – the Cultural Revolution.
Tian tackles metaphysical issues of life and death poetically, yet skeptically through the use of photographic technology. Taking what is said to be the only preserved Red Guard cemetery in Chongqing as his setting, Tian’s fictional reconstruction of historical environments establishes a tone of authority, telling the viewer that this is a factual image; this is the truth.
The graveyard where the red guards are laid to rest becomes a site of controversial historical authenticity less for the content it provides, and more for Tian’s use of digital image manipulation. Tian’s is a graveyard of neither the past nor present. What the artist aims to illustrate in his fictionalized iconography is not the cemetery, but rather the ghosts and spirits that inhabit it. Superimposed with images of female bodies, we are brought into a space where sex and death are blurred. By juxtaposing mutilated naked female bodies against an isolated and decrepit graveyard, the ghosts are likened to a dark yet arousing fantasy world of the artist.
Tian’s comment on contemporary society manages to be specific to the local situation, while remaining universal. By linking the historical with the contemporary, Tian makes statements on the social situation in present-day China, as well as providing an aesthetic quality. The graveyard is a proverbial site for the exploration of buried truths.
In “The Tears of Eros” philosopher Georges Bataille discusses correlations between the beauty of divine ecstasy and fear of torture. Tian’s spirit-bodies placed amidst an isolated and solemn graveyard bring to mind Bataille’s divine eroticism. Their severed corpses are not as sadistic as they are melancholic, adorned by subtle lighting and shadow.
Tian Taiquan graduated from the Sichuan Institute of Fine Arts in 1988 and is now Resident Artist at Tank Loft, Chongqing Contemporary Arts Centre, China. His works are considered important for the way in which they challenge the current generation of Mainland Chinese to address and critically review the taboos of the Cultural Revolution (note the pixilated eyes of the children in his works). Tian has gained notoriety in China (despite depicting his tough subject matter with great poetry and thoughtful composition, Tian’s entire works were censored from the 2008 Shanghai Contemporary exhibition by the Chinese Government) and his pieces have been collected worldwide.
