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For this event, UCCA members will enjoy:

• Exclusive seats reservation service

• Members-only guided tour

For UCCA members, please send us your name and mobile number to RSVP (ve@159.138.20.147) or call UCCA membership hotline: +86 10 5780 0200

11:50-12:20 Ticket pick-up at the reception desk (for UCCA members who RSVPed)

12:20-12:50 Exclusive UCCA members-only guided tour

12:30-13:00 Ticket distribution at the reception desk (for UCCA members who didn’t RSVP and non-members)

13:00-14:00 Image works screening

14:00-14:30 Artist's sharing session

14:30-15:00 Q&A Conversation between Liu Shiyuan and Dr. Yang Beichen, and Q&A

Liu Shiyuan (Artist)

Liu Shiyuan (b.1985, Beijing) received her BFA from the Digital Media Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing, in 2009, before earning an MFA from the Photography Department of the School of Visual Art, New York, in 2012. Liu currently lives in Beijing and Copenhagen. The scope of Liu Shiyuan's art practice comprises such domains as photography, video, stage performance, and spatial installations, among others. Through her art practice she exposes a visual language that is unaffected by regional boundaries. Her most recent solo exhibition is "As Simple As Clay” (YUZ Museum, Shanghai, 2015). Recent major group exhibitions are “2017.COM.CN” (K11 Art Foundation & MOMA PS1, Hong Kong, 2017), the 1^st Yinchuan Biennale “For an Image, Faster than Light” (Museum of Contemporary Art Yinchuan, Yinchuan, 2016); “SHE – International Woman Artists Exhibition” (Long museum, Shanghai, 2016); “The Exhibition of Annual of Contemporary Art of China” (Beijing Minsheng Art Museum, Beijing, 2016); “TUTORIALS – Moving Images and Instructions for Use from China” (Pino Pascali Foundation Museum, Polignano, 2016); “Bentu – Chinese Artists in a Time of Turbulence and Transformation” (Foundation Louis Vitton, Paris, 2016). Liu’s first solo exhibition in the US will open at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery in New York City in February 2018.

Yang Beichen (Lecturer at the Central Academy of Drama, Senior editor of artforum.com.cn)

Dr. Yang Beichen graduated from Université Paris X, France, and obtained his doctorate in Film History and Theory from Beijing Film Academy, with his dissertation titled Film as Archive. He is now a lecturer in the literature department of The Central Academy of Drama, and also working as senior editor for artforum.com.cn. Yang’s studies lie in the cross field of film and contemporary art—classic film studies and contemporary movement-film theory. He is dedicated in propelling contemporary ideology and practice with the incorporation of avant-garde theories and exhibition aesthetics.

Lost in Export (2013-2015)

Runtime: 33’34’’

Specification: single-channel/ 4K video/ Color/ Sound

Sound Composer: Kristian Mondrup Nielsen

Lost in Export (2013-2015) draws from classic scenes from film history and video art, and nurtures, via an idealistic presentation of affections and romances, a seemingly credible relationship between two groups of characters. The artist appropriates figures and characters that can emphasize the universality of plots, and creates a chain of texts that interact with one another by amassing intertextual dialogues, flashbacks and juxtapositions. The artist grants relevant references to natural scenes that play a significant role in the narratives, abstracting from it perceivable typical elements. Through composing narratives, the artist contemplates the emotions and experiences that are fictionalized in contemporary society. In this work, the artist continues her research-based practice, develops the discourse on the credibility of narratives initiated in The Edge of Vison, or the Edge of the Earth, and proposes a reconsideration of "classics" in art. By repeatedly testing the audience's anticipation of "truthfulness", the work attempts to hint at this reality: films can via a commercial model influence our real emotions, change our needs in everyday life; in turn, human desires modify and future new commercial models, and this nightmare goes on.

Evidence (2009)

Runtime: 11’39’’

Specification: Single Channel Video / 720 × 576

Evidence (2009) is the artist’s early exploration on identity. This work highlights an uncertainty about the relationships between people, or rather life itself. The artist came up with the idea one day to hold a party with each of her friends bringing that best resembled their personalities. Then the group made two sets of numbers– one to stick on the clothes, the other for the group members to pick randomly from. Each member picked one number and tried on the clothes accordingly. Then the artist wrote down actions and dialogues that resembled each identity, and numbered them for a random selection. Each person would have to act and talk according to the number he/she picked. Thus each member of the group, wearing others’ clothes, talking in another one’s way, behaving like a third one, felt totally excited, weird, and yet true.

Best Friends Forever (2017)

Runtime: 6’25’’

Specification: Single-channel/ 1080HD / sound / color

Sound Composer: Kristian Mondrup Nielsen

Best Friends Forever (2017) is collaboration between the artist and her husband Kristian Mondrup Nielsen. In this work, the artist simulates the relationship between art and politics by staging the intimate yet alien reality of a marriage. The artist and her husband registered two Twitter accounts— "Art (@GlobalArtworld)" and "Politics (@ImportantPolicy)"—respectively, to play in these roles and initiate an improvised online conversation that is both private and public. The conversation covers sensitive political issues and mocks the operation of today's art market. The artist attempts to re-consider the role of the art in a world where the media has lost its credibility ever since Donald J. Trump was elected the president of the United States. Marriage means for the artist a relationship that cannot be easily narrated, that is marked chiefly by concepts such as "binding," "law," and "responsibility." Half-jokingly, the artist also alludes to the complex causal mechanisms of politics and the economics that are behind the facade of artistic creations, exhibitions, and art collection.

The Edge of Vison, or the Edge of the Earth (2013)

Runtime: 6’00’’

Specification: Single-channel/ color/ sound

Sound Composer: Kristian Mondrup Nielsen

The Edge of Vison, or the Edge of the Earth (2013) presents the artist's systematic study of the credibility of narratives. A series of manipulated natural landscaped images are delicately insinuated into the footage the artist previously shot in the United States, Denmark, and China. These include documentations of performances related to Chinese funeral rituals, and other scenes of landscapes that are shot in a National Geographic style; the footage is shown along with a voiceover that resembles a BBC documentary narration. Purposely misleading in both visual and auditory language, the work aims at achieving a degree of narration that is clear but deceitful. A thorough exploration of the mechanism for documentary visual languages develops a discourse on the relationship between the work, the author and the audience as seen in her earlier work Hi~! (2011).

Hi~! (2011)

Runtime: 1’00’’

Specification: Single-channel video

Hi~! (2011) is the artist’s early exploration of narrative credibility. The artist uses a children’s camera (worth nine dollars) to shoot a crime-scene performance she arranged at her own place. She has an actor with a toy gun and a criminal costume waiting for her roommate to step out from the shower and records the embarrassing moment when the roommate meets the actor, thus capturing when the real meets performance. In the post-production stage, the artist adds forced special effects such as zooms in or out, panning, and slow motion in order to add to the feeling of suspense. In a candid and unpolished way, the artist reveals the inherent subjectivity in cinematic and theatrical language.

Sunrise (2007)

Runtime: 2’10’’

Specification: Single-channel video

Sunrise (2007) is the artist's first video work, which was created in 2007. This work was intended to explore the essence of video art, thinking about what video art language makes it different from recordings, films, installations, and so on. The artist linked the camera to the TV. The TV started to show what the camera was shooting, and then the artist turned the camera over and aimed it at the TV screen. In the end the TV was showing what the camera was shooting, and the camera was also shooting the TV display. By means of asking and exploring, like playing a game, the artist formed her early creative approach.

BARCO