I’ve been pretty consumed with my new job lately and haven’t gotten in as much art as I would like. This past weekend I decide to remedy the situation by heading the The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston to check out the video installation I Still Believe in Tomorrow: Contemporary Video from Asia.
From UN-Cosplayers, Cao Fei, 2006
I’m beginning to realize that I’m a moonie-eyed fangirl of contemporary Asian art, especially Chinese Art. The Chinese sense of humor, dry and self-depricating with a nod to the ridiculous and the tragic, permeates a lot of their art. Many of the pieces I’ve seen are funny while expressing emotions like loneliness, hopelessness and despair. The good stuff is layered with emotion, and makes me think about it long after I’ve walked away. The videos in this exhibit by Cao Fei are a perfect example of this. In Cosplayers (2005) she documents young people in Asia who stage elaborate role playing scenes on the city streets of China. They stalk, fight and engage each other all while dressed as their favorite Manga characters.
What’s funny about these scenes is they play out in the streets amongst people going about their daily lives. At times the onlookers are even roped into the action unwillingly. This blurred line between fantasy world and reality is seen again when the Cosplayers return home to their parents after their battles, sitting in front of the TV or in the kitchen cleaning up with their folks, still in full costume.
Still from "Whose Utopia?", Cao Fei, 2006
The disparity between dreams and reality is a theme that is also explored in Cao Fei’s video “Whose Utopia?” In this piece the artist follows young workers in the OSRAM lighting factory for 6 months as they go about their daily routines, working, saving and fantasizing about their futures. The video opens with a series of scenes showing the machinery in the factory churning out the various components of fluorescent light bulbs. In the next part, we begin to see the role the workers play in the process, engaging in repetitive and mind numbing labor. Cao Fei does a great job with the presentation. I felt the mental exhaustion one must experience doing this kind of work. The following scene is more dreamlike, as some of the workers get up from their posts at their machines and begin to act out their dream careers. One woman pirouettes in a tutu between rows of machines, a peacock dancer flits through boxes in a warehouse, another boy plays the guitar amongst large pipes and ducts. It’s silly, but there is also a poignancy about it. That these magical dreams thrive in such an uninspired surrounding speaks loudly to the strength of the human spirit. My favorite part of the video is the final scene, titled “My Future Is Not A Dream”, a montage of close shots of the workers at their posts, looking hopeful and insistent that their dreams are real. Looking into their faces parading by one after another, I felt connected to these anonymous factory workers on the other side of the world, people I would normally never give a second thought to. In the face of the repetitive, stark and uninspiring city life, these people are chasing beautiful dreams with such earnestness as to be a bit tragic. Although we may not want to admit it, I think many of us can identify with that.
I found a clip of “Whose Utopia?” on youtube (below). The exhibit runs through this weekend, January 11, 2009, and includes other videos in addition to those by Cao Fei. I highly recommend it.
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