Exhibition View | Peng Zuqiang: Hesitations

Peng Zuqiang: Hesitations has opend on July 31st. It is the second exhibition of Atenna-tenna and the venue is being supported by Objective. Please make appointment by scanning the QR code at the end. 

Peng Zuqiang

 "保联 keep in touch", 2020-2021

Multi-frequency video cutoff, 13:58

Filmed in super 8 and HD video, keep in touch is a five-channel installation consisting of gestures and scenarios, which unfolds an attention on the complexity of contact and connection.

In the first scene, two men stand outside of a car, waiting for the air conditioner to cool down the vehicle. As one puts on some house music using the car’s CD player, their silence is broken into a state of indescribable feelings. In the second scene, shot on Super 8 film, a person tries to recount a story as he spins a pen around in his hands. As he narrates the story which he cannot fully remember, he ponders this unusual amnesia. In the third scene, also filmed on Super 8, focuses on two pairs of hands cutting each other’s nails, the caring yet sensitive gesture were echoed by the intertitles. The fourth scene features a woman standing in a forest putting tiger balm on her body. And in the last scene, two people are playing cat's cradles, while two voices exchanges stories of inexplicable gestural encounters with other queer bodies.

Peng Zuqiang

Untitled (grip), 2021

resin, silkscreen print on transparency film

16 x 17(H) x 2 cm

Peng Zuqiang was born in Changsha in 1992. He graduated from the Goldsmiths, University of London in 2014, and from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2017. His residencies include: The Core Program, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (2017-2019); Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture, Madison (2019); Macdowell Colony, Peterborough (2020). He was awarded the Jury Special Award at the 8th Huayu Youth Award 2020, and a ‘Special Mentions’ at the Festival Film Dokumenter (FFD) in Yogyakarta, Indonesia in the same year.

Grounded in research, Peng examines traces of ideology and intimacy embedded in exchanges, objects, and collective history through his art. Exploring a diverse range of themes and topics, he works both in and against the observational mode, destabilizing the camera’s gaze while establishing an affective contract with the subjects.

Selected exhibitions and screenings: Right of Return, Deluge Contemporary Art, Victoria (2021);  Is It A Good Time?, screening at Mana Contemporary, Chicago (2021);  A Long Hello - Huayu Youth Award Exhibition, UCCA Beijing, Beijing (2020); Beijing International Short Film Festival, Goethe-Institut China, Beijing（2020）Festival Film Dokumenter (FFD), Yogyakarta(2020); IDFA First Appearance section, Amsterdam (2020); Anti-Matter, Victoria (2020); Transoceanic Visual Exchange 2019 edition, CACHE Space/Fresh Milk Art Platforms, Beijing/Barbados( 2019); The Core Screening, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston(2019); EthnoKino, Bern(2018); The Core exhibition, Lawndale Art Center, Houston (2018) German International Ethnographic Film Festival, Göttingen (2018); Dok Lepzig, International Short Programme, Lepzig(2017); Open City Documentary Festival, London (2017); Encuentros del Otro Cine EDOC, Quito (2017); Drunken Film Festival, Bradford (2017); Asia Independent Film and Videos, Connecting Space, Hong Kong(2016); De arrogantie van De jeug, Galerie Gabriel Rolt, Amsterdam (2015); Debates, Lab 451, Camden Image Gallery, London (2014);  Local Chinese Filmmaker Session, Chinese Visual Festival, London (2014); The Temporary: 01, ARTicle Gallery, Birmingham (2014).