{"id":854,"date":"2009-07-27T14:19:11","date_gmt":"2009-07-27T21:19:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp\/2009\/07\/cao_fei_and_yang_fudong_the_dr\/"},"modified":"2009-07-27T14:19:11","modified_gmt":"2009-07-27T21:19:11","slug":"cao_fei_and_yang_fudong_the_dr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/2009\/07\/cao_fei_and_yang_fudong_the_dr.html","title":{"rendered":"At the Henry: Cao Fei and Yang Fudong: the dream time of business as usual"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/i>
\"caofeidream.jpg\"<\/span>In a good economy with a sold middle class, factory work seems dreary. Is this all there is? What about my hopes and dreams?<\/i> In a bad economy with an eroded middle class, whatever factory work remains is an enviable a safe haven. As Bob Dylan put it in Tangled Up in Blue<\/i>, “lucky just to be employed.”

Cao Fei’s My Future Is Not A Dream<\/i><\/b> has a human-clog-in-the-machine feeling without the usual rage or desperation, because in this video, each clog is conscious of his\/her contribution. Then there’s the magic: A ballerina appears en pointe as a dying swan and, in the next scene, as a sorter of light bulbs. A man with a clip board takes up the dance, and so does a women in jeans. <\/p>\n

My Future Is Not A Dream<\/i> is not the alienated surreal of  Doug Aitken<\/a> or the worker advocacy of Allan Sekula<\/a>. It is a homage to those who make things with their hands and dream with their hearts, in Mark Twain’s words, those  “valuable personages; the
\nworkers, they that make the bread the soft-handed and ide eat.”<\/p>\n

As Jacob Lawrence said about his Builders<\/i><\/a> series:<\/p>\n

There is always an effort to express the universal beauty
\nof man’s continuous struggle to lift his social position and to add
\ndimension to his spiritual being.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yang Fudong’s City Lights<\/i><\/b> is a madcap improvisation of the classy noir mood of French gangster films. <\/p>\n

\"yangfudong1.jpg\"<\/span>Men in dark suits peer around the edge of buildings, guns raised. They hold umbrellas and dance in office buildings in the shaded light of venetian blinds. Some hold guns, umbrellas and partners, others pretend the props are in their hands, that they’re not alone and ridiculous.  <\/p>\n

Multiple short films by Cao Fei and Yang Fudong are at the Henry<\/a> through Oct. 4. <\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a good economy with a sold middle class, factory work seems dreary. Is this all there is? What about my hopes and dreams? In a bad economy with an eroded middle class, whatever factory work remains is an enviable a safe haven. As Bob Dylan put it in Tangled Up in Blue, “lucky just […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-854","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=854"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/854\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}