Image:Ran Huang, Fake Action Truth 2009
The reconstructed theatre, using every technical means at its disposal, will work with film, so that scenes played by the actor on stage can alternate with scenes he has played on screen. Going further, a dramatic production could become a kind of revue in which the actor uses dramatic, operatic, and film methods, as well as those of the ballet dancer, acrobat, gymnast, clown. […] Instead of today’s football, we must devise tomorrow’s theatricalized ‘sport.’ The electric charge which the contemporary spectator demands of the theatre must be increased to the high tension suitable for large masses of people. – Vsevolod Meyerhold, Reconstruction of the Theatre 1930
In Fake Action Truth 2009 two exotically dressed male boxers described as ‘a Chinese and a Westerner,’ perform an explicitly staged boxing match, the erroneous soundtrack disjointing the narrative and inducing a disorientation of intent.
Huang’s multimedia practice develops stories into detached versions of reality. Drawings, videos and performances read as fables of cultural dichotomies, or rumour mongering -irrational game-playing with societal and political anxieties. Turn Over 2007 is the apparent record of a basketball match between three sets of identical twins. However dressed in matching uniform and lacking antagonism the game is unconvincing and attention is shifted from the consequence of action to the act itself.
RAN HUANG was born in China 1982 and graduated from Goldsmiths College in 2007. In 2009 he had a solo exhibition at VIVID Birmingham and was included in Projectables the 7th Mercosur Biennial, Brazil, the Tina B Contemporary Art Festival, Czech Republic, and MOVE at Werkleitz, in Germany. Upcoming solo exhibitions include The Happiness of Tragedy, and The Tragedy of Happiness at SPACE STATION, Beijing 2010.
This is the penultimate in a series of video presentations developing themes around employment and performance. Fake Action Truth will continue to the 1 May, open every Saturday 12-6 and by appointment. Also on Saturdays at George Polke, LUMINOUS BOOKS, an artist curated bookshop.
www.georgepolke.co.uk/
