Out of the Box brings together works from fourteen Chinese artists, all which were made before 2000 and amidst the need to “break out” of Chinese social boundaries defined by restrictive rules and conventional public conduct. Coming out of their studios and choosing video as their new artistic medium, these artists focused on the world around them, and began developing a new perspective in their art, one that would eventually became vital for art production today.
  
Above all else, the catchphrase “Art Will Change What You Expect From It” defined their new mind set and attitude: it provoked artists and audiences into continually questioning their basic value systems––aesthetically and ethically––with the intention of endowing form with a more personal orientation. Although not always understood or appreciated, Chinese art in the pre market-adaptive period was an invitation to "live in your head" (the subtitle of the conceptual show When Attitude Becomes Form, Bern, 1971).

Unimpeded by predictable political or commercial strategies yet aware of the deceptive role of the “Spectacle” these artists turned their gaze to the fragmented world of the trivial and neglected. Uncertainty and ambiguity were the attitudes they preferred to act on, instead of tuning in to the misleading language of a dominating mass-media. What better to use in a subversive manner than the tool of the commanding media itself: the video camera in the artist’s own hand.

With only a few exceptions (accessible through personal contacts or semi-public channels) the video camera as artistic tool became available to artists in mainland china around 1992. This was also a period in which artists found associations with developments in international contemporary art easier, although they still dealt with difficult circumstances. In this period of pre-market dominance, these artists found a unique climate to re-invent their art practice, and did so with permanence. That such encouragement for a lasting process of "The New" could lead to permanent marginalization of prior art practices doesn’t mean that these art works in question are overhauled, obsolete or condemned to disappear. On the contrary, from our point of view today, these works seem like messengers from an enlightened period, whose light was cast far before them.

A series of early Chinese video works are shown in Out of the Box. Reflecting on those years, we conclude that a considerable number of these works have only been seen by a small minority in China, this is because they were showcased for friends in private apartments, were closed at their opening, or only exhibited abroad on a small scale. Even the titles of shows in that period did not seem spectacularly inviting, such as, No Space, Demonstration of Video Art, or ...(Something Trivial) As A Reason, etc.
In an attempt to elucidate the artistic dynamics of that period, Out of the Box also  includes related contemporary documents such as project sketches, documentary images and catalogs. Characteristic office furniture from that “centrally planned” era also serves as an excellent pedestal for these distinctive art works and their screening monitors.
This exhibition is realized with the generous support of some of these courageous artists: Chen Shaoxiong, Wang Gongxing and Zhang Peili.
 
Participating artists: Chen Shaoxiong, Geng Jianyi, Li Yongbin, Wang Jinsong&Xiao Hong, Wang Gongxin, Wang Jianwei, Wang Peng, Xu Tan, Yang Fudong, Yang Zhengzhong, Zhang Peili, Zhou Tiehai, Zhu Jia,

Boers-Li Gallery would like to thank Song Haidong and all the artists.