Sunday 26 April 2015

MY PAINTINGS ARE INVISIBLE



MY PAINTINGS ARE INVISIBLE  is a poem for people who have gone missing. Made by Phil in Chongqing, China 2009-10, it was written onto a series of large semi-transparent sheets of paper and hung up on washing lines through the city, in parks, building sites, tea houses.

The poem posters are showing at Bury Sculpture Centre until 9 May, as part of the ReMix exhibition. If you can't get to Bury, the video gives a flavour.

Each poster is an 8-word verse, which remixes ancient Chinese poems with lines from contemporary text artists. Written onto large pieces of semi-transparent paper, one side scripted in English the other Chinese – they mingle calligraphies, meanings, histories. Principal artists involved as calligraphers and translators: Wang Jun, Mao Yanyang, Xu Guang Fu, Dan Dan, Deng Chuan and Yan Yan.

ReMix brings together artists from China and from the UK. The basis of their relationship is a curatorial exchange that has existed between Platform China, the artist run space in Beijing, and the British curator David Thorp. Alongside Philip Davenport, other UK based artists in the exhibition are David Blandy, A K Dolven and Richard Wilson.

MY PAINTINGS ARE INVISIBLE poster on a washing line in Chongqing, 2009

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