I thought it was really interesting that Yun-Fei made his artwork with the notion that it would eventually be mounted on a wall in a gallery, and so he broke it up into sections. When I first saw the exhibition, I think I was a little overwhelmed by the intense detail and large size of the artworks, and it was difficult for me to get the full story because I couldn’t see everything at once. I was probably too distracted from seeing so many images to notice the sections; in other words, losing sight of the forest for the trees. However, the more time I spent with the artworks, walking past them on various occasions, I was more easily able to see the progression of the story and piece its parts together, especially for The Village and Its Ghosts. I think for that piece, the fact that it wraps around the outside of the moongate structure helps facilitate me processing it, because I am physically unable to see the whole thing at once. As a side note, I found that Yun-Fei’s explanation about how he made artworks with the idea that they would be in an gallery further reflects his struggle between private and public viewership/use of art, which was brought up when he commented that he recognizes a show is a public presentation of his private observations.
Towards the end of class, I asked Yun-Fei what the figure on the bottom right of this photo was:
He said that it was one-half of a sculpture he had made that got shipped back to him from Belgium to be fixed. I wonder if that 3D process has also influenced him like his experience at Dieu Donné has (I forgot to ask him though!).
Also, I thought this animated version of the Song dynasty scroll Along the River During the Qingming Festival at the China Art Museum in Shanghai was really cool. Thinking back on when I went, I feel like because the animated scroll was so large (basically an entire room dedicated to it; at 11:32 the whole thing is shown) and we were small in comparison, it kind of felt like it was being unfolded, or rather, like we were part of the unfolding.
I really like your point about the contrast between public and private viewership, and this is something I was curious about too, but didn’t know how to phrase this to him in a question. In a sense, because he is producing his pieces as a “job” at the end of the day, at what point does some of the joy of art as a creative process get lost in the production requirements to display a piece in a gallery? It was interesting to hear that he had some restrictions in terms of layout because he knew it would be displayed in a gallery; I guess I didn’t expect pieces of art to have regulations prior to an artist even beginning to create.