Li Zhanyang at Galerie Urs Meile, Beijing, to 24 August

Exhibition Description:

‘Rent’ – Rent Collection Yard (2007) is the title of the largest and most complex sculptural installation Li Zhanyang (born 1969, Jilin Province, China) has ever created. Taking eighteen months of production after nearly a decade of conceptual incubation, Li Zhanyang’s ‘Rent’ – Rent Collection Yard is a humorous and subjective look at the Chinese contemporary art scene.

The 34 life-size coloured fiberglass figures of this installation are modeled after international celebrities of the art world (e.g. Ai Weiwei, Joseph Beuys, Harald Szeemann, Samuel Keller, Mao Zedong, and Li Zhanyang himself). They include Chinese and Western artists, curators, collectors, gallery owners, gallery assistants, and art students. The congregation is part of a broader narrative, revealing the latent conflicts and power relations in the art world.

The work is a contemporary transposition of the story of landlord Liu Wencai. During the revolutionary era, Liu Wencai was a victim of political muckraking and depicted as a brutal exploiter of the peasants. Liu’s historic appearance as a despotic oppressor was the origin for the monumental and sculptural masterpiece called Rent Collection Yard (1965), known also as Rent Collection Courtyard permanently exhibited in Dayi County, Sichuan Province.

Description:

Image: Li Zhanyang, 'Rent' - Rent Collection Yard, 2007, Sculptural Installation at Galerie Urs Meile, Beijing, 37 life size fiberglass figures, approx. 224 x 1750 x 500 cm. Courtesy: Galerie Urs Meile, Beijing-Lucerne.

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