Happy People All People All Women All Men All Women All Men All People First Man Second Man First

Happy People All People All Women All Men All Women All Men All People First Man Second Man First Woman Second Woman Third Man All People Fourth Man Some People Other People All People Third Woman Fourth Woman Fifth Woman Fifth Woman All Other People Fifth Man All Other People All People Fifth Woman All Other People Fifth Woman All Other People Fifth Woman All People

Participating Artists: Hu Wei, Jia Chun, Lou Ye, Lyu Zhiqiang, Tan Huamu, Wang Yifan, New Historicism Group (Ren Jian, Zhou Xiping, Liang Xiaochuan, Yu Hong, Zhang Sanxi, Zhu Xikun, Wang Yubei, Zhao Bing, Dao Zi, Gong Ke, Ye Shuanggui, Ye Niu, Yu Youbin, Chen Mo), Yang Yushu, Yuan Yunsheng, Zeng Hong, Zhang Hui, Zhang Miao, Zhang Yue, Zhao Wenliang, Zhao Yin’ou

Curator: Carol Yinghua Lu
Assistant curators: Qian Mengni, Sun Gaorui, Yang Tiange

The 152-character exhibition title comes from the poetic drama, Happy People, written by the poet and literary critic He Qifang (1912-1977) on November 20, 1940, later published in his second collection of poems, The Night Song. Happy People depicts a utopian scene in an autumn night where a group of young people gather in the wild and talk about their ideals while singing and dancing around a bonfire. There are many figures in the poem, some appear as collectives, such as all people, all women, all men; some as individuals, such as the first man, the second woman, the fifth woman, etc. They/he/she all take on a non-distinctive identity but strong traits and personal experiences, with each representing a certain type of individual.

Since China entering the so-called “New Era,” the new historical conditions have brought about dramatic changes and intense feelings for each of us. Whether one chooses to live beyond or within the mundane world, whether one gets away or stays on, whether one keeps silent or just mutters, they are all individual iterations of one’s relationship with the present. Or in other words, we need to explore certain appropriate expressions in adapting to the New Era: communication via poetry.

In He Qifang’s poetry and imagery, we have found a way to convey today’s ideas and emotions. We have taken away the monologues and dialogues in the original poem, Happy People, only retaining the references to the characters, the outline and shape of the poem. In the exhibition, the artists narrate the stories through their artworks, which replace the verses that have been omitted from He’s poetry. As signifiers, the individual characters exist in both singular and plural forms; similarly, those groups of characters are both plural and singular ones. The entirety of all individual and collective characters conjures up a group image of “us.”

The artworks in this exhibition portray different characters and their states of mind from various perspectives: hesitant, confused, dissociative, schizophrenic, thoughtful, negative, trapped, disoriented, self-denying, clashing, or full of fantasy. There are no works directly related to social issues, and neither are there any confrontational figures. Like the different characters and groups of people in the poem, the artists’ works refer to a variety of situations, encounters, positions, demands, spirits and inner experiences, as they strive to portray multifaceted realities and moods that are complex, profound and indescribable.