Duan Jianyu: New York Paris Zhumadian

Back

02

[Introduction]

In her fiction “New York Paris Zhumadian”, Duan Jianyu created a character Hu Xiang who came from the village, and wanted his ill father to stay in his dorm. He “is like that person in news who carries his father to class”, developing a new son-father relationship. “Hu Xiang feels badly when looking at father’s slightly hunched back and extruding joints due to overwork. Sometimes things can never be compensated for if not immediately. He wants to immediately carry father on his back to the Great Wall, to the seaside, to the Great Plains and even to Mount Everest!” They rediscover each other and happiness in life. They raise chickens in a quiet corner of the schoolyard and embark upon a journey of fantasy. They dream they walk around the world with the companions of a massage chair, chickens and air hostesses.

Duan Jianyu portrays a dream of the world in the most mediocre daily life of China. It is embarrassing, incomplete, mixing the characteristics of the pre-modern and post-modern (just like the formations of “New York Paris Zhumadian”), but it is touching. When Hu Xiang has to graduate and he has to follow the dream he created for his village father, he must join the middle class in the city. This becomes the direct motivation of Chinese social development. After all, the world is not that far away from Hu Xiang’s dream. It seems to be right under his nose.

The “New York Paris Zhumadian” painting series is innately connected to Hu Xiang’s story, as a platform to view the “world’s common scenery” and to present the mental boundary the mundane meets fantasy. The mediocre write an epic about daily life, about how they cannot bear the shock of reality. That enables us to review our fragile relationship our surroundings and accommodates us to rest and unwind a dream full of sweetness from the struggle with an optimistic reality. Ultimately, we cannot escape; we can only accept such mediocre poetry. This may be one of the most existentially frustrating delights of our generation.

(Hu Fang)

[About the Book]

03

06 07 08 09 10 11 13 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 31 32 33 34 35 37 纽约巴黎驻马店_HQ

[About the Artist]

Duan Jianyu (段建宇), born in 1970. Graduated from Oil painting department, Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts in 1995. Currently works and lives in Guangzhou.

Text & Drawings: Duan Jianyu
Editor: Hu Fang, Duan Jianyu
Designer: Liu Zhizhi, Xia Yu, Meng Ke @ MEWE D.A.
Number of Pages: 152
Size: 29×29 cm
Edition: 2008
Language: Chinese & English
Weight: 0.525kg

Photography & Video: Feng Zhiyin
Text & Image: the shop
©the shop 2018

More on >>