Ink Media #4
2011-2013
Ink Media had its world premiere at the Asian Art Museum in the summer of 2013, in the exhibition CHEN SHAOXIONG: Ink. History. Media. Chen’s recent body of work often deals with themes of propaganda, social protest, collective action, and the power of photography to document cultural history and memory. In the animated video Ink Media, music provides a soundtrack for scenes of political protests, demonstrations and rallies from across the globe. Chen spent two years collecting news photographs from the Internet capturing protests in different parts of the world, which he then reproduced in ink drawings on rice paper. The final work consists both the paintings and a video montage of the paintings that weaves depictions of protest and social action into a powerful collage. When presented as rapidly juxtaposed visceral images, the video captures contemporary social media’s ability to provide viewers with a constant bombardment of up-to-date but fragmented moments of humanity’s shared struggles. The video (2014.33.11) and paintings (2014.33.1-10) together provide commentary on international social issues and struggles, using animation and ink to remove the dialogue from direct engagement with any specific issue or protest movement.
Chen Shaoxiong was born in Shantou, China in 1962 and graduated from the print department of Guangzhou Fine Art Academy in 1984. He was a founding member of the conceptual artist group “Big Tail Elephant Group” in the 1990s and has also been a collaborative member of the Asian artist collective “Xiijing [Western Capital] Men” and the Chinese artist collective “Project without Space.” In addition to conceptual art, he works in a variety of media, including painting, photography, collage, and video. His work has been exhibited in numerous solo and group shows since the early 1990s, and is represented in collections such as the MoMA in New York, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Kunsthalle in Bern, and the Guangdong Museum of Art in China.
Ink on rice paper
18 1/8 × 27 9/16 in. (46 × 70cm)
Asian Art Acquisition Fund
2014.33.8
Provenance: The artist; purchased by Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington, 2014
