From Andrew Frost…
Celebrating its third anniversary White Rabbit is staging Double Take, an show that examines “…the art of imitation and the often narrow line between appearance and reality” and exhibits works from the collection that have only a tangential relation to an actual depiction of reality and tilt more to a playful representation.
That there is a universe of ambiguity between these two conceptual positions is the zone where the works of various WR artists are found, and one could not ask for a more perfect example of this than Ai Weiwei’s Sunflower Seeds [2010], a 500kg pile of hand-made, porcelain sunflower seeds, an exact copy of an otherwise unremarkable object that, en masse, demands attention. Their ambiguous status can be interpreted in many ways. As Art Life contributor Luise Guest put it, “The sunflower seeds […] can be seen to represent the masses, every seed individually hand painted, every seed different, yet all appearing on the surface to be identical, conforming to expectations.”
Other works in Double Take include Zhou Xiaohu’s Renown – a ‘live’ interview between the artist and a mannequin news crew, Liao Chien-Chung’s Goddamn Life [2008], a home-made replica of a Harley-Davidson motorbike, and Shi Jindian‘s Beijing Jeep’s Shadow [2007], a wire sculpture that creates its own illusion in shadow.
Until January 31
White Rabbit Gallery, Chippendale.
Pic: Shi Jindian, Beijing Jeep’s Shadow, 2007, detail, steel wire, image reproduced courtesy of the artist and White Rabbit Gallery.
