From Six Mile Village to Three Shadows
Three Shadows Photography Art Centre, Beijing, China
‘From Six Mile Village to Three Shadows’, an exhibition of new work by photographers RongRong and inri, documents a cycle of destruction and construction that spans several years — from the demolition of the couple’s hometown Liulitun (literally ‘Six Mile Village’ in Chinese) in 2003, to the opening of the Three Shadows Photography Art Centre four years later. It’s a portrait of contemporary China, where Haussmann-scale demolition has yielded an unprecedented construction boom, and a depiction of life, itself a cycle of beginnings and endings, amid this rapid development.
The exhibition begins with the final days of Six Mile Village. In one photograph, the couple sits perched atop the doorway of a half-demolished building, surrounded by fresh white lilies and holding bunches of flowers in a funerary gesture. In another, the two artists are seen through this same doorway, posed amid rubble. This time, their naked bodies are draped on a ladder, their faces obscured by their cascading hair. Another documentary-style sequence ends the exhibit: photographs of the construction of Three Shadows, the first contemporary art centre in China devoted to photography and video art, founded by RongRong and inri last year.
In contrast, the photographs in between these two sequences — between the death of Six Mile Village and the birth of Three Shadows — have neither a documentary style nor an explicit narrative. These intensely personal, lyrical photographs explore the artists’ relationship and the theme of reproduction. There’s a series of up-close, almost abstract images of inri’s pregnant belly, shot in dramatic chiaroscuro, and photographs of ethereal interiors in which the artists engage in sexual acts. The couple also appears in a series of formal family portraits, wearing stereotypically-Chinese garb, and again in the foreground of grand, beautifully-shot landscapes, now with their small child.
China’s dizzying development is presented as a parallel for the life cycle, with an urban landscape as fleeting as the procession of generations. But, for RongRong and inri, this setting is merely a context for their love story. The artists, appearing almost identical with their long black hair, exist apart, absorbed in their romance. By inserting themselves into every shot — side-by-side, holding hands — they render the show uncomfortably intimate, and the viewer a voyeur.
Natasha Degen
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