Meulensteen

The gallery is pleased to announce Chen Qulin’s first solo exhibition outside of China. Chen Qiulin is a young Chinese artist whose performances, photographs, and videos incorporate sculptural elements and a dramatic, intuitive approach to the changing Chinese landscape. Her work addresses the urbanization of developing China, and deals both with its rapidly changing geographical and urban conditions and the psychological impact these changes effect on its culture. The exhibition presents a survey of work made in the last several years and a series of new photographs and sculptures that center on the idea of the city as a magnet for the dreams of a displaced culture. The exhibit also features the international premier of several performance-based videos. Over the past four years, Chen Qiulin’s work has documented and recorded changes resulting from the Three Gorges Project. Ranging from a series of photographs set in her demolished family home to a monumental effort that resulted in a 16 ton structure being transplanted from Sichuan Province before its flooding to a gallery in Beijing, Chen Qiulin’s works have created, in her words, a focused record of “this period in history which I have experienced.” The exhibition utilizes two motifs that symbolize the effect rapid urban development has had on contemporary Chinese culture. She memorializes the common brick balcony, a site which once served as the locus for communal dreams of the future, but has virtually disappeared due to high-rise construction. Another prominent symbol in the show is the cheap plastic flower, a ubiquitous means in China to beautify one’s home, which here reminds us that even dreams for a better life in China are simulated. The exhibit re-imagines the forces that are transforming modern China: personal, local, mythic, and grand all at once.

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