Mock history = modern art?
“The most bizarre Old Shanghai tale you have never heard of”. MOFBA blog.
A colleague alerted me to this curious history-themed artwork now exhibited in Shanghai as part of a show of nine artists. Using staged and manipulated photographs and mock evidence the piece tells a fictitious story of a hot air balloon flight over Shanghai in March 1936. I’ve not visited the show in person and cannot judge how soon the viewer sees through the prank. My clue was the rather famous historic view of Avenue Edward VII, often used in postcards and album views, now shown with a balloon. The pinyin in the “editorial” text was also suspicious. Lastly, I checked the Eastern Times Photo Supplement for March 8, 1936: it featured women and horses, no balloon flights. (All the time the golden bathtub was winking from the staged photographs, but what does an archival rat care?)
Authentic view east along Avenue Edward VII, seen from the top of the Great World Amusement Center.
The photographer Zhou Yulong is known for faux-historic photo shoots, and this installation is obviously well-crafted and fun. In the exhibition statement he spins the story of finding the “evidence” and claims to “reconstruct” a historic event. The local press seemed quite complicit in the mystification - or did not care enough. One article called the nine exhibitors “veteran photographers who have faithfully documented the changing landscape of the city, multidisciplinary artists who have combined text with pictures and installations, and researchers who have unearthed the unsolved mysteries of the city’s past”. Some visitors left the show convinced this was all real history.
My issue with this piece is that the subject is so safe! In the Chinese context, where the media space is saturated with lies big and small, and where historical facts are routinely obfuscated and edited, I see a missed opportunity for criticism and satire. But a skillful forger always finds favor with the regime (See “This Awkward Red Glamour”), and the artist Zhou Yulong, no doubt, is on the path to prosperity.