Vanguard Gallery is participating in Art Basel Hong Kong this year from March 27th to March 31st , showcasing Jiu Society’s project Bullshit Blind Bull for the first time. We are delighted to welcome you on our booth 1C43.
In Lu Xun’s poem, A Satire on Myself, he wrote, “Eyebrows raised, coldly confronting accusing fingers of a thousand bullies. Yet with my head bowed, I’ll be a bull for children to ride.” “The bull for children to ride”, also known as “Ruzi Niu”, refers to people who are altruistic and fully devoted to serve the mass. As Shenzhen Special Economic Zone first established, the municipal party committee and municipal government hope to have a statue installed in the government center to embody the city spirit and encourage people of the city. With deliberate consideration, the renowned sculptor Pan He’s design of Ruzi Niu is selected to demonstrate the Shenzhen spirits, which encourages successors to carry on the pioneering spirit and skyrocket the economy of Shenzhen. Copies of Ruzi Niu can still be found in various cities in China today.
Arturo Di Modica’s famous Charging Bull on Wall Street is also a classic among bull statues. Its unpredictable strength in bellicosity embodied the strength, vitality as well as unpredictability of the stock market. Such message can be copied and the artist hope the four copies of the bull will bring along the good will to other cities in the world while one of the copies has already installed in Shanghai, China in 2010.
Thus we find there are several specific elements can serve as embodiments of certain spirits and temperament in urban landscape, while such spirits and temperament can be copied and pasted. Jiu Society is committed to overthrow the ones who ride the back of the tiger and break through the long constructed restriction of identity as a city; we acquire an egoistic, skeptical and despising attitude through the history of urban elements in between doughtiness and unruliness. With a roar of loneliness, we created a furious, paranoid, fearless blind bull. Once we were blind but now we can see, see through the truth.
Jiu Society has also installed digital firecrackers with creaking sound around the bull to add another shade of morale of the Bullshit Blind Bull, which emodies a new generation of spirits.
Installation View
About Jiu Society
Jiu Society consists of three members, Fang Di, Ji Hao and Jin Haofan. The three Shenzhen born and raised young artists are considered as the new generation of this immigrant city. Shenzhen to them is no more what to their parents – a place to make money. They examine Shenzhen, their own city, with their fresh perspectives and make themselves heard. “They are the experimental products of Reform and Opening, and also sons of dispersed culture. In name of nonsensical hedonism, despite of occasional anxious and suspect, Jiu feels very good. So they tried to make themselves heard, by making uncertain and small sound, Jiu.” Recent exhibitions include: Proregress: 12th Shanghai Biennale, Power Station of Art, Shanghai, China(2018); Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture, Shenzhen, China(2017); GAS STATION Ⅸ: dà qǐ dà luò, Vanguard Gallery, Shanghai, China(2017 duo exhibition); Lost in Shenzhen, 33 Artspace, Shenzhen, China(2016); Vertical Scence, Guangdian Cultural Creative Town, Shenzhen , China(2016); The 2nd(Yantian)Young Artist Week– The Floating Scenes, Shenzhen , China(2016).
