SHANGHAI—Our correspondent in China takes for a look at the best gallery and museum exhibitions on view in Shanghai, including an exploration of science and art at Shanghai MoCA, new photography by Beijing’s Jiang Zhi and group shows at Contrasts Gallery and Beijing Art Now that attempt to define today’s Asian youth art movement.

MUSEUM EXHIBITION

Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art
“Remote/Control”
Through April 18

For its tenth exhibition since it opened, Shanghai MoCA has relied on its young curatorial team to put together a show that is as entertaining as it is provocative.

“Remote/Control” brings together multi-media interactive pieces that call into question the relationship between art and science, and more poignantly, between artists and viewers. Many argue that increasing developments in, and usage of, science have contributed to art that is ever more reliant on the participation of the audience. The museum experience is becoming more about interaction than passive viewing. With this is in mind, the museum has gathered works that are stimulating, engaging and, above all, funny.

Upon entering the museum, you come face to face with Jin Jiangbo’s Farewell My Concubine, a life-size caged dinosaur; tricked up with motion-detecting sensors, the dinosaur starts to scream and struggle as you approach it. With people constantly circling around this piece, it creates an exhilarating environment that frightens and fascinates at the same time.

Du Zhenjun makes his second appearance in the museum, with a piece that is as amusing as his first, entitled Wind. In that work, viewers walking across the video installation activated fans that in turn “blew” objects around the screen.

In his new piece, Disturbance, individuals on the screen go about their daily business, engrossed in their work. Posted on the wall is a number that the viewer can call that activates everyone’s cell phones on screen. People stop working, snap out of their reverie and scramble to find their cell phones. This “disturbance” also causes cows to moo, cats to hide and babies to cry on-screen. It is an ingenious way of allowing viewers to control a virtual space through a seemingly everyday object (the cell phone); it becomes the “remote control” for the piece.

Certainly the most compelling piece in the exhibition is Fei Pingguo’s Brainwashing Machine, a circular projection tunnel that viewers sit in. Once in, the participant pushes the red “I Agree” button to start the tunnel spinning rapidly, which causes various images to project at high speed on the tunnel walls. Once the viewer hits the “I Agree” button again, the spinning stops, and the machine proclaims: “Now you are a good person”.

Although the participant has some degree of control, much of the piece itself is the artist putting him in an uncontrollable and almost violent situation. The artist and the viewer in effect vie to control one another.

GALLERY EXHIBITIONS

M97 Gallery
“Things Would Turn Simpler Once They Happened“
Through April 13

On the street just outside the M50 complex, M97 Gallery sits in a brand new commercial space attached to a massive apartment complex. Following in the steps of Ofoto and ArtSea galleries, M97 is dedicated to contemporary photography, particularly artists who are working in China or have China-related subject matter. It sits on the second floor of a shared gallery space and has large windows and an airy, open space.

The gallery’s inaugural exhibition, “Things Would Turn Simpler Once They Happened,” is a show of large-scale photographs from Beijing artist Jiang Zhi. His work features anonymous subjects bathed in an intense spotlight, their heads upturned to the sky in revelatory wonder. What is at stake here is the universal desire for an unseen force that can help bring the simple beauty of an extraordinary life.

Jiang Zhi’s subjects may hope for a way out of the ordinary, but he lacks the extra-ordinary talent to bring this exhibition out of mediocrity. Instead of relying on the power of composition and narrative, the artist depends on the kitschy heavenly spotlights to convey the message. The subjects' faces are obscured, effectively masking any emotions or hints of what they are feeling. Upturned arms and subjects afloat do nothing to distract from the fact that there is no real narrative. There are merely people with bright lights shining on their faces.