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until 27.01. | #4137ARTatBerlin | Galerie Esther Schipper presents from 15. December 2023 the solo exhibition “We, Entertainmen” with artworks of artist Tao Hui.
Esther Schipper announces We, Entertainment, Tao Hui’s first solo exhibition at the gallery. On show are two video installations, a sculpture and paintings.
Tao Hui is best known for his immersive video and film works that play with the narrative forms of cinema and television as well as the narrative formats of social media. We, Entertainment encompasses a variety of media and is divided into four distinct sections, which together represent both a personal psychological journey and an exploration of the wider societal implications of identity in terms of gender, class, ethnicity and cultural bias (e.g. through urban/rural, North/South dichotomies). As Tao’s work makes clear, the media proves to be a powerful force in this dynamic of tested identities, both as a destabilising and normative influence, but also with liberating and even restorative potential.
Exhibition view: Tao Hui, We, Entertainment, Esther Schipper, Berlin, 2023, Courtesy of the artist and Esther Schipper, Berlin/ Paris/Seoul, photo © Andrea Rossetti
We, Entertainment begins with The Fall (Green), which finds a powerful poetic image for a world in crisis: The tail of a giant python protrudes from the ground among the animal’s fleshy, bloody fragments. Based in part on folk tales from childhood (a constant source of inspiration for the artist, who grew up in a rural area of China known for its imaginative stories) and his memories of the 1990s television series New Legend of Madam White Snake, in which the motif is associated with the revelation of one’s true nature, The Fall (Green) represents contemporary life and the anxious emotional response one can experience in uncertain times.
The Night of Peacemaking shows how contemporary culture has transformed traumatic experiences into entertainment. In the format of a TV talk show, the emotional life of a family is portrayed in poignant and sometimes heated conversations, particularly between mother and daughter. The work comprises an environment that simulates the set of such a television program, blurring the boundary between studio and exhibition space and equating the viewers with the audience of a talk show. Tao shifts the focus away from the narrative content and uses the format as a kind of medium. The structure of the dispute, but also its technical representation, is given a broader meaning: for example, the three different cameras symbolize different perspectives in a political power struggle.
Exhibition view: Tao Hui, We, Entertainment, Esther Schipper, Berlin, 2023, Courtesy of the artist and Esther Schipper, Berlin/ Paris/Seoul, photo © Andrea Rossetti
In another video, Hardworking, we meet the host of a streaming infomercial who wants to sell television sets, acknowledging both her own loneliness and the exploitation of her audience’s similar search for connection. At the same time, she ponders the nature of reality in the age of digital screens. Her prompts – both those to buy the screens and those to reflect – are accompanied by her effortless movement between levels of reality: As she enters and exits the screens she is trying to sell, the video erases all these boundaries.
The fourth section of We, Entertainment turns to the still image. A series of paintings on opalescent paper covered with a thin layer of shell slices depict personal experiences veiled by an altered traditional imagery, some of which are linked to Buddhist motifs. One image of intertwined, weeping snakes refers to an endless knot, a symbol of the Eight Treasures of Buddhism, while another juxtaposes the Sanskrit word for ‘moment’, KSANA, with the image of a decaying human form. Just as important, however, is the material: a conch shell, considered a magical vessel, symbolizes the spread of the Buddha’s teachings and the awakening of his subjects from the slumber of ignorance. A large mandala of colored glitter on the floor also draws on the symbolic and ritual power of its medium, the Tibetan Buddhist practice of creating an image out of pigment or colored sand. However, the image of a chubby baby grabbing and hitting a (smiling?) python also has something comical about it. As a symbol of impermanence, the mandala, like all ephemeral sand mandalas, is destroyed, its glittering variety swept away, symbolizing the Buddhist belief in the transience of all material life.
Tao Hui, Hardworking, 2023, HD video, projected onto a specially made angled and curved wooden canvas, 320 x 180 cm (canvas) Duration: 12:43 min, Exhibition view: Tao Hui, We, Entertainment, Esther Schipper, Berlin, 2023, Courtesy of the artists and Esther Schipper, Berlin/ Paris/Seoul, Photo © Andrea Rossetti
Tao Hui was born in 1987 in Yunyang, Chongqing, China. He received his BFA from Sichuan Fine Arts Institute in 2010 and currently lives and works in Beijing. In 2015, Tao Hui was awarded the Grand Prize of the 19th Contemporary Art Festival Sesc_ Videobrasil: Southern Panoramas, São Paulo, and the Art Sanya & Huayu Youth Award, Sanya, China. In 2017, Tao Hui was awarded the HUGO BOSS ASIA ART: Award for Emerging Asian Artists. In 2019, Tao Hui was shortlisted for the first Sigg Prize of the M+ Museum in Hong Kong.
The artist’s institutional solo exhibitions include: Searing Pain, Aranya Art Center, Qinhuangdao (2022); Not at all, OCAT Xi’an, Xi’an (2017); New Directions: Tao Hui, UCCA, Beijing (2015), as well as the group exhibitions and projects: NGV Triennial, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (2023); Cosmos Cinema, 14th Shanghai Biennale, Shanghai (2023); Motion Is Action: 35 Years of Chinese Media Art, By Art Matters, Hangzhou (2023); Bordercrossing: Possibilities and Interactions, YUZ Museum, Shanghai (2023); Projection, Sifang Art Museum, Nanjing (2023); ON | OFF 2021: Carousel of Progress, He Art Museum, Shunde (2022); The Elephant Escaped, Macalline Art Center, Beijing (2022); Refrigerator Illusion, Asia Culture Center, Gwangju (2021).
Tao Hui Mandala, 2023 Glitter, 110 x 110 cm, exhibition view: Tao Hui, We, Entertainment, Esther Schipper, Berlin, 2023, Courtesy of the artist and Esther Schipper, Berlin/ Paris/Seoul, photo © Andrea Rossetti
His works are in the collections of: Kadist Foundation, San Francisco; Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris; Louisana Museum of Modern Art, Copenhagen; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art – MMCA, Seoul; K11 Foundation, Hong Kong; M+ Museum, Hong Kong; Sunpride Foundation, Hong Kong; New Century Art Foundation, Beijing; China Red Star Foundation, Beijing, and De Ying Foundation, Shanghai.
Text by David Ulrichs.
Opening: Friday, 15. December 2023, 18:00 – 21:00 Uhr
Ausstellungsdaten: Friday, 15. December – Saturday, 27. January 2024
To the Gallery
Image caption: Tao Hui, The Fall (Green), 2022, Silica gel, fiber glass, metal, paint, 65 x 95 x 22 cm (25 5/8 x 37 3/8 x 8 5/8 in) (tail) 398 cm (overall width), Exhibition view: Tao Hui, We, Entertainment, Esther Schipper, Berlin, 2023, Courtesy the artist and Esther Schipper, Berlin/ Paris/Seoul, Photo © Andrea Rossetti
Exhibition Tao Hui – Esther Schipper | Zeitgenössische Kunst in Berlin | Contemporary Art | Ausstellungen Berlin Galerien | ART at Berlin
