Selected Solo Exhibitions
2006 

"Spectral Mempry:Wu Gaozhong Solo Exhibitions",curated by Li Xiangting,Songzhuang Art Museum,Beijing,China
2008 Wu Gaozhong Solo Exhibition,Loft gallery,Barcelona,Spain
2008 Wu Gaozhong Solo Exhibition,FOTOFEST "The Twelfth International Biennal of Photography and Photo-related Art",Houston,America
2008 Wu Gaozhong Solo Exhibition,Shanghai Zendai MOMA,Shanghai,China

Selected Group Exhibitions
2008
FOTOFEST"The Twelfth International Biennal of Photography and Photo-related art",Houston,America
2007 "Asian Attitude/Soft Power:Contemporary Asian Art",Shanghai Zendai Museum of Modern Art,Shanghai,China
"Asian Attitude/European Attitude",National Museum of Poznan,Ploand
"China Under Construction:Contemporary Art from the People's Republic",Art Houston,Houston,TX,America
"ZHUYI!CHINA:Contemporary Photography from China",Artium Museum of Contemporary Art,Spain
"Fractured Visions:Chinese Video Art",Center for Asian Studies,University of SC,America
2006
"The City of Fremantle Festival of Photography",Art Center of Fremantle,Australia
"Misalignments:Chinese Video and Performance Art Documenta",UCB Institute of Eaet Asian Studies,America
"Our Impediment:Contemporary Art Exhibition",White Canvas Gallery,Nanjing,China
2005
"Mahjong:Contemporary Chinese Art from the Sigg Collection",Kunstmuseum Bern,Switzerland
"Unusual Scene:five Chinese Contemporary Artists Case Analysis",Today Art Museum,Beijing,China
"Inward Gazes:Documentaries of Chinese Performance Arts",Museu de Arte de Macau,Macau
2004
"China International Architecture and Art Biennial",International Urban Public Space Exhibition,Beijing Planning Museum,China
2002
"Sun Bathing:Open-air Art Party",DaTangJinDao,Nanjing,China
2001
"Sources of Bodies and Objects",Contemporary Art Exhibition,Art Commune,Hong Kong
2000
"Man and Animal Performance Art Exhibition",Qingliangshan Park,Nanjing,Jiangsu,China
1999
"Writing Manner of Leading Qualities:Prints and Calligraphy Exhibition of Chinese Contemporary Artists",the Gallery of Nanjing Normal University,Jiangsu,China

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Imprints of Terror

by Li Xianting

Wu Gaozhong has earned a high reputation in the field of contemporary art since 2003 for  his series of works that are duplicates of daily objects, enlarged, diminished or life size. Made of wood or other materials, these duplicates all have one feature in common: they have hairs implanted in them. Daily objects with hairs on them, as a unique form of expression, give off a sense of alarm. Only when people are scared or terrified are phrases like make your hair stand on end” used to describe such feelings.

Actually, his inspiration comes from a terrifying memory from his childhood. “I was around six years old and slept with my parents every night. Once, in the middle of the night I suddenly woke up and found someone sitting at the bedside staring at me. I cried out as hard as I could. I woke my father and he turned on the light and asked me what had happened. I told him I saw a man sitting at my bedside staring at me. He asked where the man was, but when I looked around there was nothing. ‘How is it possible that there is someone else in the room? You must have made a mistake. Come on. Let’s go to sleep,’ he said and turned off the light. I forced myself to go to sleep again and I was too scared to open my eyes. But after a while, I couldn’t help opening my eyes again. Oh, I was going crazy! Again there was a man sitting at my bedside and staring at me. This time he was so close that I could see him very clearly. I cried out and my father turned on the light once again. I told him what I saw and imitated some of his movements. From that moment on, the appearance and movements of that man made a deep impression in my mind. My father said it was impossible, and yet I insisted that there was someone else in the room. Finally, my father took out an electric torch and tried to ‘find’ the man. The two of us searched almost everywhere in the room, but we ended up finding nothing. At last, we searched the bed, inside and out. Something creepy was found. I saw a head portrait on one of the cardboard boxes underneath there. It was fluorescent. I pointed at the head portrait, shouting ‘that’s him, that’s him.’ Nevertheless, my father saw nothing. I remember clearly how desperate I was at the time…”

It is said that children are more likely than adults to experience weird occurrences. Whether this is true or not or has any scientific basis does not really matter. What matters is the fact that Wu Gaozhong has successfully transferred his unforgettable frightening childhood memory into a kind of artistic language to let hairs grow on the things that arise from his memory. Those hairy, daily objects all have something to do with the frightening and unpleasant experiences of Wu’s life. Let’s take the pink suitcase for example. He said “the suitcase had accompanied my commute from Beijing to Xuzhou for several years. In its company, I had undergone interrogations and ID exanimations at least three times.” Moreover, there is a story behind the pair of combat boots, which are made according to a pair of his own boots. Combat boots were very popular among students at art school around 1989. There is a certain kind of power contained in combat boots. Speaking of this particular pair of boots, they also originated from one of his unforgettably terrible experiences: on National Day, 1999, Wu was interrogated by a policeman on his way home very late in the evening. Strangers are imitations of his son’s WWII soldier toys. Through these soldiers Wu tries to express that the soldiers are “possessed by the devil.” They are the executors of terror, but at the same time, they are also the victims of terror. The large, ten meter long pendulum was specially made for the opening exhibition of Songzhuang Art Center. The pendulum is a symbol of time;  time is always something people fear the most, for no one can stop time. Children long to grow up while adults always feel that time flies too fast. That’s why we have old sayings such as “Standing by a river, Confucius said: Time goes on and on like the flowing water in the river, never ceasing day or night!” and “Time is money, but money is not time.” The scales of date and time on the disc denote dates and times of periods in his life Wu can never forget.

Memory is the “storage imprint” of past life contained in people’s minds. Certain people, things and incidents gradually fade from our memory as time goes by. However other incidents remain unforgettable. Those left in our memory usually have something to do with strong emotional stimulants such as happiness or fear. Compared with traditional art, contemporary art puts more emphasis on true life, especially feelings and experiences of panic. The question is how you can find a way to express such memories and feelings. Wu Gaozhong has chosen the objects that have something to do with his memory and experience. Furthermore, he let the objects grow hair, which associates people with the frightening experiences behind the stuff. The “hairy things” are more than the embodiment of experience and feeling. As art works, they transform the alarm imprinted in Wu’s memory into something that the viewers can also perceive.

Memory and feelings are very personal. Such personal memory and feelings must be expressed with felicity so that they can arouse resonance among other people. Let’s take the electric torch for instance. Although people feel differently toward it, their fear towards darkness is somewhat similar. Moreover, memory of things like temporary residence permits and ID cards are commonly possessed by everyone. Therefore, the large “hairy” electric torch and those “hairy” ID cards and temporary residence permits can awaken some relevant memory.

The works by Wu Gaozhong in the past two years are all have something to do with the “objects” involved in current public topics, like cars for example. Wu Gaozhong has embedded hairs into a real car, the first time that he has done such a thing to a ready-made. The car covered with hairs totally changes its coolness, simplicity and metallic charm that exclusively belong to industrial products. It turns into a mechanical monster created by modern society. To Chinese people, in particular, the car already means more than just a kind of vehicle. It has become a symbol of desire and social status. Most people living in cities have gone through the unpleasant experiences such as overtaking, being overtaken, being bullied by luxury cars, competing, and even quarreling, affray and car accidents. Certainly, such unpleasant experiences cannot be ascribed to cars. But as a symbol of modern society, the car has also caste a magic spell that restrains people living in modern society.  Dream and Distance is also one of his most recent works made this year. Daily objects are placed on a huge piece of “cloud.” A hairy hanging ladder is also on the cloud, which, together with the cloud, functions as a symbol of a dream. People’s daily life involves all kinds of dreams. Each necessity on that piece of “cloud” is associated with a dream. Nevertheless, the sense of familiarity towards duplicates of daily necessities is cut off by “the hairs,” which add a distinct kind of feeling to the association of people and objects and enhance their hair-related imagination.

The big fist was made by Wu Gaozhong in 2007. The fist is not daily necessity in the traditional sense, but it’s a symbol of strength and power. During the Cultural Revolution, the use of the image of the fist in fine arts reached its acme. In 1990s, Wang Guangyi, once again, adopted the image in a sarcastic way. The fist, as a metaphorical image, has been enlarged to a fearsome degree in Wu Gaozhong’s works. Furthermore, the hairs make the fist seem even creepier.