From 2 October to 3 November 2013 Art Plural Gallery presented the solo exhibition of Chinese artist Tian Taiquan featuring a selection of his photography works.
The artist, born in Chongqing, China vividly expresses the living scar weighing on his country since the Cultural Revolution. Covering and unfolding memories through photography montages, the artist tangles reality and fiction creating a witness of history in a colourful yet violent graveyard.
“The Cultural Revolution impressed me so much when I was a child, that it is the permanent inspiration of my creation. It needs to be explored constantly. I still remember the period when red flags and Dazibao were at everywhere on the street. The horrified violence in Chongqing was very famous in my motherland and became my fertile resources.” – Tian Taiquan.
For this exhibition, Art Plural Gallery presented 12 photographs from the Totem Recollection series. Lying on a red and infinite landscape of stigmatised Mao figures, the nudity of a dead woman body is sacrificed on the altar of communism. Raping sensuality, a green military suit with a glittering badge stands as the character’s only piece of clothing. As if swallowed by an immense propaganda sea, semi buried women go unnoticed as their blood merges with the red abyss of the Revolution. Tied up with thick and solid ropes, some convey the impossibility to differ or escape from the unique party’s path.
