Artissima Cinema, Shanghype! , Portrait of the City from Dawn to Dusk

The first event of Artissima Cinema, devoted this year to the city of Shanghai with a review of videos by a group of international artists, will take place at Mirafiori Motor Village, on November 9: preview of the project and conference “The OFF story of the contemporary art revolution in Shanghai.”

Alexander Brandt and Davide Quadrio will offer an untold vision of Shanghai. A journey through three exhibitions that have made their mark in the Shanghai art-world. A group of artists who challenged the city of Shanghai from the suburbs. Pictures from the city’s past, when negotiations with the government for a “proper” visibility were at the heart of the art work of an avant-garde group headed by Xu Zhen, Yang Zhenzhong and Alexander Brandt, supported by BizArt.  “Art for sale”, 1999 : “Fang Mingzhen and Fang Mingshu”, 2004; “Solo exhibition”, 2006. Shanghai’s aspiration and desire to once again become the legendary place it once was, the need to be an international and modern China, together with the idea of power which Shanghai is seeking between local identity and globalisation: these are the themes to be explored through a collage of documents, catalogues and documentaries.

A part and backdrop of this evening will be the presentation of Hipic.org, an image for all time: an online project as a place of the ephemeral, where a photo sums up in 1 minute the need for vision before disappearing into a cybernetic void: forever.  Art without an artist, art without economic value, art that disappears and re-appears, the quest for attention and observation, knowing that this is the sole possibility in the world and the only simultaneous moment in the world. Hipic, a democratic archive location with no hope for the future, is very fitting in the case of today’s China, with specific reference to Shanghai: this idea of the continuous move towards something else, with no past and possibly no idea of the future either – this impertinent, optimistic and flattering present that leaves no time other than for a cursory glance at reality, like so many others: totally useless.

Saturday, November 10 during the contemporary arts night, the spectacular building of Museo del Cinema will host a selection of art videos devoted to Shanghai including new works produced especially for the event.

“The years fly by in Shanghai and each month changes the one that follows. In just a few years, we went from technological pre-history to the digital era. LED screen and LCDs are everywhere – in taxis and skyscraper lobbies, in the subway and on entire facades of buildings, or on huge screens taken out at night on barges on the river Pujiang, so bright that you just cannot help but look at them. What I’m trying to get across in this latest version of Shanghai is its inevitable contradictions, for it is bent through the eyes of artists until it becomes a fictitious, distorted reality that nevertheless conceals extravagant details somewhere in between poetry and drama, revealing once again the true face of Shanghai.” (Davide Quadrio)

We will see the Shanghai through the eyes of local artists such as Zhang Ding, Liang Yue and Song Tao and the well-known video by Yang Fudong, Robber-south, 2001; the animation video by Melanie Jackson Made in China; a multimedia installation, The Next Second, be Alexander Brandt, a German artist who lives in Shanghai. And more: the video clip Hero by David Cotterrell, the historic Shouting video of 1998 by Xu Zhen, Yang Zhenzhong’s work subtitled Na Xiong Na Er: the city as a phallus, in which architecture is no more than space snatched away from the sky.

The city then decomposes into an avalanche of pictures without a guiding thread: Huang Kui’s Go away, Pierrre Giner’s latest creation and the Mattia Matteucci+Patrick Tuttofuoco duo with The Green Sky. The review starts and ends with Olivo Barbieri’s A silent story and Riverscape #1 Night, China Shanghai 07.

Sunday, November 11 during the opening hours of the Fair, the public will have the opportunity to review the artists videos in an unusual location: a special bus parked in front Artissima pavilion, the ideal finale of an amazing and fascinating urban trip in the true Shanghai, the Shanghai beyond dazzling lights, “the city of the people who live there and who trade their own survival.”