Every new model that goes on the assembly line is a work of art for car manufacturers.
To highlight the artistic side of industrial creation, Audi China has invited Beijing-based Courtyard Gallery to put on its "Celebration of Life" multi-media exhibition at its Audi Forum in Oriental Plaza, along with its new Audi series.
Many visitors to the forum are surprised at the harmony between the new cars and the fine art works. Each in its own way expresses the artists' feelings about contemporary society.
Along the windows are the works of Hong Hao - photos collaged on a reproduction of the Song Dynasty (960-1279) masterpiece "Spring Festival on the River." Of course, the press of people at the remote festival is replaced by the hustle and bustle of people as well as motor vehicles whizzing across overpasses.
Hanging from the ceiling above the cars are television screens showing a man at work, whose face is reflected from tubes on a computer screen in the screen-saving mode, accompanied by music composed by New York-based Chinese composer Liu Suola. The multimedia work was created by Song Dong.
"The repetition makes people wonder about what the computer and Internet age has brought to our lives," Ingrid Dudek, a curator of the Courtyard Gallery, said.
Zhao Bandi's works are familiar to most visitors as similar works of his - with the beloved giant panda as the protagonist telling people what to do and not to do - have been shown in subways in Beijing.
The works as glistening and luminous as the cars on show are two stainless-steel sculptures by Zhan Wang.
Entitled "Steel Rock Series," the works are stainless-steel copies of two natural stones.
One is taken from a big naturally sculpted rock from Taihu Lake and the other from a meteorite that was originally found in Nandan County, in South China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. Local annals record that the meteorite fell in Nandan in 1516. It weighs 680 kilograms with metal accounting for 91 percent of the content.
Zhan Wang, who has hammered and welded the pieces of stainless steel together into the experimental sculpture works, wants to send his works to their original places. For instance, he said he hopes he will be able to have astronomers send the stainless "cousin" of the meteorite back to the universe.
"The fall of the meteorite left a big 'hole' in the universe and I want to mend the hole, at least in my mind," he said.
"It's not heavy, because it's hollow inside and it weighs the same as a school bag stuffed with books, pencils and who-knows-what," he said.
(China Daily December 28, 2001)
