Wang Jianwei

each disc signed in Pinyin, titled in English, dated 2000 and numbered 1/5

Korea, Seoul, Seoul Rodin Gallery, Japan, Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery, My Home is Yours, 2001

This work is generally in good condition. The two DVDs are packed in separate plastic CD cases.
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"Yellow Signal", an important solo exhibition at the Ullen's Center of Contemporary Art, Beijing in 2011, affirmed Wang Jianwei's significance in the Chinese contemporary art landscape. The artist's importance was further attested upon the announcement of his selection as the first commissioned artist for The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation, Chinese Art Initiative at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Wang Jianwei's diverse practice is not bound by the use of medium; indeed his reputation as a new media artist is founded upon the continuous re-examination and critique of these very parameters of expression. Wang Jianwei's conceptualisation of artworks is not founded upon medium. Instead, he seeks to blur the very boundaries that define mediums, entering the unchartered liminal territories between each artistic vehicle. When one revisits the 2002 work Connection (Lot 985), conceived of at the beginning of the century, Wang's underlying understanding of the integral complexities of mediums is apparent, and represents his expressive urge to surpass them. Indeed, directly addressing one of the central focuses of Wang's practice: uncertainty.

On the surface, Connection is a critique of the television as a commodity. In the canon of video art in China, the iconography of the television has often been utilised, naturally exploiting the organic relationship between moving image and the domestic appliance, such as Zhang Peili's work Broadcast at the Same Time from 2000. Connection employs the motif of the television, showing a grainy low quality montage of various popular film elements. Using a frustratingly low resolution alluding to pirated VCDs, the artwork confounds contemporary expectations of high definition viewing experiences. It exposes the nature of television, as a tool for the communication of ideology. This mode however has been superseded by the new cheap and crude "made in China" digital technology – the advent of the VCD can be identified as a kind of "Chinese digital media". In Connection Wang Jianwei addresses the tenuous boundaries that delineate the television and the silver screen, underscoring the uncertain dimension between mediums.

The other end of this uncertainty stems from the audience. When the general Chinese public is mesmerised by romantic classics such as Titantic, via their televisions on pirated VCDs, it becomes increasingly difficult to determine whether this is a move towards a more liberal, democratic cultural atmosphere. Is this happening a reactionary movement against television as a tool for national propaganda, or is a collective brainwash currently underway in our consumerist society? It begs the question, whether this is a triumph of mass entertainment for the average family unit or if new media has given birth to a new generation? Or under "whose" influence are we actually all under? Wang Jianwei's Connection attempts to "connect" these queries, whilst prompting the audience to ponder the uncertainties that are present in China. While the questions raised may reveal a façade of video art and seem specific to medium, – the resonance of the artwork has lived beyond any limitations of medium.