Art Journal #45: Sui Jianguo

In the Today Art Museum show curated by Gao Minglu, my favorite is "The Shape of Time" by Su Jianguo. Seen the Mao Jacket, the Red Dinosaur, and his crashing car video, but I found this work the most intriguing.

Here, he attempted to communicate the passing of time, in various forms - videos (with a great moody background music), actual objects, notes, etc. Since 2006, he has been dipping an iron string into a pot of blue paint, to "add layers" to the "inverted bubble", an act he plans to repeat every day until the day he dies. In the artist statement, he said this is sometimes done by himself, sometimes by his assistant.

In the short video, Sui takes your mind to travel through "time" with him. He captured time (the 4th dimenion) in 2D, 3D, video; in "measurement" (eg, diameter in cm). A feast of various forms of time flashing before your eyes.

Honestly, the rest of the show, the curator notes seem to be stronger than the actual work...or maybe I just didnt get it. There were supposed to be a piece of Xu Bing in the exhibition (as shown in the ad/online catalog) but I think last minute they cant put it up (or some problems happen with it). Not that very interesting overall....