"From China With Love"

The estimable Chicago Reader notes the opening yesterday of a photography exhibition by the Gao Brothers at Walsh Gallery, in Chicago. According to the gallery:

"On March 16th Walsh Gallery presents photography and sculpture by Beijing-based artist duo the Gao Brothers. "From China with Love" is an investigation into the effects of Chinese urbanization on the spirit.
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"Gao Zhen and Gao Qiang have expressed an alternative voice during the 20 years that they have been making art in China. They experimented in performance art, installation and photography during the mid 1980s when these practices were only in their infancies."

Several photographic series are included, among them "TV," "From China with Love," "Embrace," and "High Places." These series include photographs depicting various "real and imaginary" events. Explains the Walsh gallery:

"China's rapid globalization and the sexual ambiguity that often appears in the Gao Brothers' work refers not to sexual confusion; it's about a confusion of spirit. This sexual androgyny also questions conventional party line logic on what is normal and what is pornographic.

"The Gao Brothers simultaneously invite the viewer to share in these feelings of confusion while hoping all along for a little more love for us all."

Gao Zhen (b. 1952) and his younger brother, Gao Qiang (b. 1962) come from Shandong Province, but now maintain a studio in Beijing's former "No. 798 Electronic Components Factory," the centerpiece of the Da Shanzi art district. Zhen is a graduate of the Shandong Academy of Arts and Crafts. Qiang graduated from Qufu Normal University and is now a painter at the Shandong College of Light Industry.

They work with a variety of media including painting, sculpture, and photography. They're best known, however, for "digital art" performances like World Hug Day. Last year, the UK Guardian mentioned that "1989 until 2003, they were on the government blacklist and forbidden to leave the country. But they are now part of a new wave of Chinese artists wowing galleries abroad."

The Walsh gallery exhibit runs until April 28.