The Sculpture / 雕塑品

2018 - 2020
video installation
1920 x 1080, 2 Channels, 5.1 Sound, 28 min on loop
KodakTMAX 400 B&W Negative Film, C-Print, 150 x 150 cm
work commissioned by Ullens Center for Contemporary Art
video trailer ︎

The Sculpture, an experimental documentary consisting of performance and photographs, focusses on the recently established collection of African art in the National Museum of China in Beijing. Through carefully inspecting these foreign objets d'art, the film attempts to explore the essential meaning of museums, and also the geopolitical relations as constructed by the Asian, African and European continents. Accumulated in the 1990s, the African collection in the National Museum of China is indelibly marked by elements of both the precolonial and postcolonial, which frustrates the museum's efforts to view them as the products of timeless, ethnic Others. The politics of recognition and material redistribution are complicated by the present three-way relationship between China, Africa, and Europe. Following a main character who is dressed in a black suit, the film tries to grasp this vague historical conjunction amidst a sea of images and memories, and traces the two latest trajectories of the African sculptures: to the east and to the south. Through the transformation and appropriation of Maurice Jarnoux's iconic photograph of André Malraux in 1954 standing next to his prototypical art book “Imaginary Museum”, this new filmic stage reveals aspects of the collection which are otherwise hidden by the dark obscurity of museums.

Installation view at Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing, China, 2018

Producer | Gregor Kasper
Director of Cinematography | Lucas Bueno Maia
Director of Sound | Shen Sum Sum
Sound Source | Nature ambience.wav by Jacdutoit, Bleating goats by seenms,
FIREPLACE by leosalom, Climax Wooden Hit by qubodup, chinese cymbal.aif by ianhall
mix mfo3b7 113.wav by ERH, Crowd Talking During Interval (surround version) by blouhond
Make-up Effects | Mooni Perry
Translation | Candice Jee
Technical Support | Christoph Manz, Manfred Miersch
Music Mixing | Ilya Selikhov
Film printed by | Labor Pixel Grain GmbH
Post-production | Musquiqui Lab
Adviser | Kristina Leko
With the support of | National Culture and Arts Foundation
Commissioned by | Ullens Center for Contemporary Art
Presented by | xīzhuāng culture & media

Especially appreciate the support from
Alice Escher, Satchivi Komla Edoh
Yan Shen Xie, Xiao Quin Gu, Xi Guo, Ka Bian
Luqi Lin, Duffy Du, Shi Yao, UCCA Team

2022 “FIDBA International Documentary Film Festival”, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
2021 “Citizens in the Shade, Aliens in the Sun: Trade”, Vernàcular Institute, Mexico.
2021 “Practices of rupture. Toward a reparative justice”, Archive Sites, Milano, Italy.
2021 “A Wet-Run Renewal” FHNW Academy of Art and Design and Kunsthaus Baselland
2020 “13th Shanghai Biennale – *A* Wet-Run Rehearsal: Flowing Images”
2020 “The 13th edition of Lo schermo dell’arte – Cinema and Contemporary Art Festival”
2020 “Taiwan Documentary Film Festival in Thailand”
2020 “Sino-Wharf: from Chinatown to Red Internationalism” at OCAT Shenzhen, China.
2020 “Taipei Film Festival”
2020 “International Film Festival Rotterdam”

Related Information ︎
︎︎︎ KADIST
︎︎︎ International Film Festival Rotterdam
︎︎︎ Ullens Center for Contemporary Art
︎︎︎ Berlin Art Prize
︎︎︎ Art Asia Pacific

© 2024 Musquiqui Lab

The Sculpture / 雕 塑 品

© 2024
Musquiqui Lab

The Sculpture / 雕塑品