Who Are You: Questions from Li Ran's Cross-Media, Cross-Form Narrative

Who Are You: Questions from Li Ran's Cross-Media, Cross-Form Narrative

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AIKE is currently showcasing Li Ran’s solo exhibition "Who Are You," which will conclude this Sunday. The following text is a review written by the Shanghai Art Platform for Li Ran's exhibition.

Li Ran has constructed a stage at the AIKE Gallery. It appears that visitors turning right upon entry are inclined to ascend this platform. The grey felt surface of the stage rises approximately half a meter above the gallery floor, with enigmatic portraits hanging from all three sides. At the center of the stage, there is a square indentation, its surface covered with anti-slip metal plates, which disrupt the uniform reflectiveness of the surrounding metal. Scattered about the indentation are seemingly arid materials used for mold-making, alongside exotic masks, fruit trays, open pots, jars, and feathers, suggesting remnants of a mystical ceremony—though the effect is more likely one of bewilderment for the audience. In front of the stage, other spectators face those on the platform, heads bowed—engaging in a dislocated interaction prompted by two televisions below the stage, displaying Li Ran’s new video work.

In the dual-screen video titled Somewhat Abstract, Somewhat Realistic (2019), Li Ran continues his signature silent film-like style, playing a scene involving a makeup artist and an actor at approximately 1.5 times the normal speed, intermittently interspersed with hand-drawn video segments. These inserted drawings disrupt the comedic effect inherent in the fast-paced playback, transitioning the video into the domain of abstract character depiction. The emergence of abstract figures similarly prompts reflections on the makeup artist’s role in transforming facial features. Within the frames, the actor’s skin is gradually enveloped by oil paints styled in Cubist/Expressionist manners, and Li Ran, portraying the makeup artist, likewise adopts an exaggerated, humorous bodily expression that enhances his persona as an artist—a fitting extension of Li Ran’s own identity.

On the distant wall of the stage, more portrait oil paintings are displayed. Turning right and passing through a black curtain that connects the walls, one enters a dimly lit room showcasing videos. A new dual-screen work by Li Ran, titled Persona Swap, is projected onto a standalone wall surface. Deviating from the artist's customary practice of referencing and mimicking past imagery, this video is presented in the form of a video essay to the audience. It starts with the incident of Soviet realism advocate and makeup expert V.V. Terelyafov lecturing in China in 1958, narrating the changes in stage design, costume, and set design in Chinese theatrical productions from the 1950s onwards. Influenced by Li Ran’s scholarly demeanor or his penchant for dramatic narrative, this documentary-style subject matter gravitates towards drama, an art form adept at transforming shape into imagery. 

In the second chapter of Persona Swap (2017-2019), the artist employs rhyme while voicing a montage composed of collected makeup test photos, using the poetic device to annotate the synesthesia between video and theater: "Behind the benign princess lurks a sinister servant peering around" and "Within the working class, always some revisionist free birds." These seventeen or eighteen-character aphorisms rhyme with each other and, under Li’s dubbed narration, blend seamlessly with the distinctly characterized and exaggeratedly made-up theatrical characters on screen. This also subtly reminds the audience of Li Ran’s mature manipulation of various elements as a video artist. Li’s transformation and emulation of dramatic forms within the video medium ("Transformations") recalls the blurred boundaries between makeup artist and artist roles in Somewhat Abstract, Somewhat Realistic.

PERSONA SWAP, 2017-2019, SYNCHRONOUS DUAL-CHANNEL 2K VIDEO, BLACK AND WHITE & COLOR, 4.0 STEREO CHANNEL, 15’30”

"Who are you, after all, aside from an indestructible illusion?" is the title of the third chapter of Persona Swap, which echoes the thematic thrust of the exhibition while questioning the possibility of realism, as represented by Terelyafov, to authentically restore reality. Regardless of the proficiency in realistic technique, the formulas relied upon always encourage illusions to linger on the stage. As Sino-Soviet relations evolved, Chinese theatre also underwent corresponding changes in form. "Like the stage backdrops of illusionism, which never achieved an artistic conformation identical to their internal art…” this line from the narration towards the video’s end accompanies the gradual emergence of a modern stage set shown on dual screens. The stage set appearing at this moment seems to have shed the formulaic realism of Terelyafov’s style, progressing towards Symbolism and a 'presumptive' style. Although such stage designs may not have engaged in cross-media negotiations with contemporary artistic movements (like American Minimalism and Post-Minimalism), they are now enlisted under the banner of video art by contemporary artists, or rather, they enrich the potential for graphical narratives within the historical discourse of video art.

Moonlit Night, 2019, oil on canvas, 120 x 90 cm

At this juncture, the audience may comprehend the oil paintings in the exhibition as Li Ran’s cross-media transcription of stage scenes. One painting, titled Moonlit Night, serenely represents a scene akin to that of the Italian sculptor Giambologna’s The Rape of the Sabine Women; the pursuit of dramatization and new meanings transcends the continuous updates of forms and their inherent significances themselves, conveying the act of transformation. Another oil painting, Flower and Cigarette, portrays two male figures sitting back-to-back. In the artist's view, each figure represents different inclinations in contemporary Chinese art; broadly speaking, left-leaning artists advocate for a variety of realisms from modern to contemporary times, while right-leaning artists indulge in either traditional or imported forms of abstract and symbolic expression. Although this insight from the artist does not deepen the understanding of painting’s potential to transcribe drama, it nonetheless indicates the special significance embedded in the transformations and divergences among artistic forms.

Note: The Rape of the Sabine Women is based on a myth from ancient Rome. In the mid-8th century BCE, due to the predominance of single men among Rome's earliest citizens, King Romulus devised a plan to abduct Sabine women to ensure the continuation of Roman populace growth. From the Renaissance to the present, numerous European artworks have been inspired by this theme, including the renowned sculpture by Giambologna, The Rape of the Sabine Women.

Flower and Cigarette, 2018, oil on canvas, 90 x 70 cm

The exhibition's title "Who Are You?" can be interpreted as an inquiry into one's identity amidst the shifts and interactions of media and form, following the loss of the subject’s clear identity. This aligns with the thoughts of German playwright Bertolt Brecht on the fourth wall—a conceptual idea which also gives its name to an artwork in the exhibition—questioning who is the intended recipient of the actor's performance beyond the literal stage. After viewing the exhibition and turning right back to their starting point, the audience is confronted with the same stage they initially faced, embarking once more on an artistic performance and a further interpretation of media and form possibilities.

Text by Zhang Zhisheng