The White Rabbit Gallery, located in the inner city suburb of Chippendale, is one of the largest and most significant collections of contemporary Chinese art in the world. It closes twice a year for the installation of new exhibitions.
For those of you who don’t live in Sydney, we’ll try to visit at least every six months so that we can share this glorious treasure with you. If you do live locally, please understand that these photos don’t begin to do the artworks justice. I highly recommend an in-person visit to the gallery – they’re open Thursday to Sunday and, astonishingly, admission continues to be completely free.
Here are the highlights from our most recent visit. These shots were taken with my iPhone and were somewhat limited by the low lighting. In addition, there are several audio-visual and dynamic pieces which simply couldn’t be captured in still photos.
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This first artwork is titled Under Heaven 20121018 by Xu Zhen’s Madeln Company. It comprises over seventy kilograms of piped oil paint. The piece was completed in October last year, and is still drying…
It made me want to rush home and bake raspberry meringues. According to the artist, the patterns reminded him of “cityscapes seen from space” – I saw similarities to coral reefs and from a distance, it looked like a large collection of swirly party ribbons…
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If there is one piece worth visiting the exhibition for, it’s Mini Home (2005).
Artist Jin Shi recreates in half scale the home of a poor urban migrant couple – peasants who have come to the city in search of a better life only to find themselves trapped by the system. It is heartwrenchingly small, especially when you consider that the real “house” was only twice as big.
According to one of the knowledgeable White Rabbit guides, the couple who lived in the space would take turns to sleep, with one sitting outside while the other rested. At the bottom left is a very basic lavatory, and all components of the artwork – down to the cups, saucers and television – have been reproduced at half scale.
I found this piece incredibly moving and came back to it several times during our visit…
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On the ground floor, the enormous Appeals Without Words (2006) by Jin Feng shows eighty-nine peasants queued to lodge corruption complaints to the central authorities. The subjects are painted in gold to resemble statues – a statement on the length of time their complaints can take to be heard – and their placards are blank, signifying the futility of the process. A beautiful, imposing and emotive piece…
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Bai Yiluo’s Illumination (2011) is a collection of antique oil lamps, an item which was commonplace in Chinese homes before electricity. It made me ponder how quickly items which we consider to be essential can become obsolete, and reminded me of Zhao Xiangyuan’s collection of soap in Song Dong’s Waste Not exhibition.
My friend Roz taught me that many contemporary artworks are delivered in pieces to be assembled on site. Sometimes the artist will be closely involved in this process; other times the gallery will decide how the pieces are to be displayed. In this case, Bai Yiluo was happy for White Rabbit to lay out his lamps, and this circular display is the fourth arrangement they’ve tried since the exhibition opened…
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By contrast, artist Zhou Jie had very strict instructions for the layout of her porcelain city, titled CBD (2010). Each piece arrived at the gallery beautifully packaged, numbered, and with clear directions for placement. The artwork reflects the layout of Beijing’s new CBD, supposedly covered with pathological organisms to highlight the spread of buildings like viruses, and expressing the artist’s concern about urban growth.
To me, it was as if the city had sunk into the ocean and become part of a reef. This image was enhanced by the bed of rice on which the pieces were laid out…
The beautiful creamy porcelain was intricately shaped and detailed...
CBD was Pete’s favourite artwork in the exhibition…
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Ideality (2007) is a modern photographic series by Wang Guofeng based on the “ten great buildings” built in Beijing to mark the 10th anniversary of the 1949 Communist Revolution. After taking high resolution images of each building, the artist painstakingly photoshopped out all the cars and people…
…and inserted a tiny image of himself (to scale) into each large photo. As significant landmarks in the most populous country in the world, these buildings would never be deserted, so the idea of being the only person there must have been both eerie and intriguing (and somewhat post-apocalyptic)…
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On the top floor of the gallery, Even in Fear (2008) runs on a continually inflating and deflating cycle, with the weather balloon blowing up to what appears to be near exploding point before shrinking down again. Artist Zhou Xiaohu seeks to represent the materialistic drive so prevalent in China today, and the growing anxiety that comes with an expanding economy and subsequent wealth…
(Edit: The White Rabbit Gallery have just tweeted that the weather balloon has burst! It was meant to eventually, and the artwork was delivered with spares.)
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All the pieces for Wonderful City (2011) by Cheng Dapeng were created using a 3D resin printer. The light box presentation made it difficult to photograph them, but they were surprisingly detailed…
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As always, the White Rabbit gift shop is a treasure trove of old-fashioned toys and gadgets. I’m old enough to remember playing “elastics” at school…
I couldn’t resist a photo of this egg cosy…
As the gallery doesn’t charge an entry fee, we try to support them by buying something whenever we visit. This time we picked up a couple of their postcard books from the current exhibition (Roz, I have a copy for you).
The Smash Palace Exhibition will be on display at the White Rabbit Gallery until August 4, 2013. If you’re in Sydney, it’s definitely worth a visit!
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White Rabbit Gallery
30 Balfour Street
Chippendale NSW 2008
+61 (02) 8399 2867
www.whiterabbitcollection.org
(website includes artists’ biographies)
Open Thurs – Sun, 10am to 6pm
Closed February and August
Closed Good Friday, Christmas Day and Boxing Day
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