Beijing Rocking
-- Focused on Chinese Independent Rock n Roll Films and Chinese Urban Youth Culture
"In most instances, rock contributed to and reflected changes that were being fueled by other social sources.” --D.R. Shumway
Curated by Xiaoqiao Wang
Beijing Rocking is a program focused on independent Chinese films and moving image works presenting rock n roll music scene in Beijing, which not only gives a glimpse on the subcultural scene in a political center of collectivism, but also offer a perspective of the youngsters’ living status in this fast-changing city. By presenting a comparison of some representative works from the 1990~2000 and 2010~now, the exhibition aimed on In this case, I especially focused on two distinctive director’s works , Zhang Yuan and Peng Lei. By showing their representative works with distinctive aesthetics, production and purposes, hoping to generate a discussion on how the artists reply to different context and their subvertion to the mainstream.
In the 1990s, a series of independent films focusing on Beijing rock music emerged among the ‘sixth-generation’ directors. This influx was closely related to the popularity of rock music in the late 80s in Beijing and the 1989 campaign triggering strict control of such activities by government. Among them, Beijing Bastard is the first one appeared and the most radical step in such a theme. Filmed in semi-documantary style, it showed directly the crucial period of earlyrock scene in beijing, in which almost included all the biggest names of the early Chinese rock n roll :Cui Jian, Dou Wei, He Yong and some cultural celebrities. As a fan of rock ,Zhang gets really close to these people, therefore lots of the rockers’ daily life scene is captured in the film. At that time, Cui Jian, the pioneer of Chinese rock, was banned to public concerts by the government, whereas Zhang Yuan boldly used him to play himself in life ,performing in live house.
Coming to the 21st century, approximately 30 years after Beijing Bastard has come out, an independent Chinese film Follower Follower engaged with Beijing rock is allowed to be screened in public, which is directed by Peng Lei, frontman of the Chinese New-Wave Rock band New Pants. Based in Beijing , Peng Lei is a creative artist making independent film and animation works beyond his rock career, even most of the band's music video is directed by him. As a part of the emerging rock n roll music scene , also a hot representative band in tody’s Beijing, his works shows a completely different style ,athetics, and showing some post-modernism sense. In the film Follower Follower, Peng gave his perspective of reflecting the relationship between Chinese youth with rock music as a western influence, showing the lost of nowadays Chinese youth or even the Chinese Rock under the massive western culture today.
By presenting the exhibition, it’s exciting to show films of Chinese rock here in a context that generates punk rock music. I would like to present the diverse independent video works portrays the scene, to make the visitors aware what ‘rock’ is it like in Beijing under a different culture to London, and the change due to different historical stage.
Launch:
Thursday 5th July – 18:00-21:00, Event launch
Exhibition Open Daily:
Friday 6th July- Monday 9th July
10:00 – 17.00
Location: University of Westminster, Harrow Campus, The Forum, London Gallery West.
Address: WATFORD ROAD, MIDDLESEX, HA1 3TP
Nearest Tube: NORTHWICK PARK – METROPOLITAN LINE