Common Love,
Aesthetics of Becoming
April 27–June 11, 2011
Will Kwan
Shanghai Concession Camo (la longue durée), 2007
Installation with four single-channel videos, color, silent
Videos: 14 min. each; installation: dimensions variable
Courtesy the artist
In Shanghai Concession Camo (la longue durée), Kwan presents four monitors that show video animation of photographs of tree bark. The trees featured, London planes, were introduced by the French to the Concession area of Shanghai in 1902. While the images appear abstract, the green wall upon which the monitors hang suggests patterns of camouflage—the material of subterfuge, of war and colonialization. While these trees have remained in Shanghai and appear germane to the city's contemporary landscape, they are remnants of a loaded political past. Nature is not innocuous here, but instead subject to the inseparable influences of nationalism and capitalism.