“Kàn Bù Wán” exhibition photos
In Chinese pinyin, Kàn Bù Wán literally means, “You can’t finish looking.” These works by the emerging artist Wang Yifan embody the statement—with five 24-hour videos and 20,000 characters written over eleven canvases, it would take one more than 120 hours to see this exhibition in its entirety. The artist doesn’t hope that anyone will try. Thus he liberates the viewer using impossible length, mundane appearance and self-evident simplicity to imply that seeing with our minds is just as important as seeing with our eyes.
Projected in the stairwell is Quietude, a short homage to everyday memories of waiting while staring at the shadows of leaves on the concrete. Like a sunbeam, visitors’ shadows are intended to mingle with the projection. Subtle movements from the wind are visible to keen-eyed people.
The artist’s conceptual evolution begins with stories on canvas, represented by “blackboard” works like The Story of Ma Li. One single work of eleven canvases, the original story was authored Wang Yifan, and then copied onto canvas by eleven of his friends. Each canvas has a different “artist.”
His first twenty-four hour film is Stakeout on Time—Wang Yifan’s Clock (2006), a video of a clock face from a single fixed-point perspective. The result is that the object is, and isn’t, what it seems. This film became a model form for the artist’s twenty-four hour, fixed perspective film.
Lili’s Falling Tears is an infinitely looping flash animation. Originally intended to screen on an enormous LED screen, the artist’s cell phone had to suffice for the exhibition. Lili is a rendering of a crying girl (a “Boss” to those familiar with Worlds of Warcraft), whose falling tears are actually bombs. Lili is rendered in nostalgic 16-bit video game style, to create a contrast with the intricacies of modern games for those who can remember playing Pong.
The Previous Exhibition (2009) is a ghostly illumination portraying exactly what the title betrays, a canvas from the previous exhibition. The location of the projection is exactly where the previous painting hung and the painting’s size is also accurate. Attempts to inspect the work obscure the image in shadow.
Over three computer screens are the first stages of the [Insert Name Here] Filmed By Wang Yifan series, an experimental work where Wang Yifan films works by other artists. His creative signature is only visible through the video’s form and choice of artists. When completed, the series will be exhibited as a virtual exhibition with more than a dozen artists.
Screened through a window collected from one of Beijing’s demolished hutongs, Waiting For the Rain All Day (2007), was filmed out a window into a typical Beijing six-story dwelling. The minimal movements captured are the bulk of its content, the rain—if you chance to see it—lasts only half an hour.
Kàn Bù Wán runs at Star Gallery in 798 until September 7
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