A R C H I E F1 9 9 8  
16th
  Liang Zhao
Game
  China 1997
Videotape, 6:52, colour, stereo
 
An image approaches and then disappears. It is blurred, comes towards you, becomes sharper, but before you can see what it is, it shifts again and disappears into blackness. This movement repeats and the image comes nearer and nearer and becomes sharper. An image seems to be forming of two people. Standing, intimate. They seem to be disconnected from their surroundings. But then the image comes into focus, and it is near enough to see what is taking place. The scene abruptly loses its charm: he is pointing a pistol at her and his aggression is perfectly apparent. She just stands there, seems unable to think of a way to defend herself. The image we thought we were seeing, before we could see all the details, was different from the one that slowly came into focus. This raises the question of how we could have misunderstood the first image so grossly and why we did not understand the body language. Could we see it at all? The videomaker seems to be playing a game with nearness and distance, and introducing stratification by giving a meaning to the sign of two entwined figures, a meaning which we could not perceive before. It is only through the nearness that you can see the underlying aggression which must have been present. Aggression which the man seems to be directing towards the viewer as well as towards the woman. That which was not visible is then, in the end, visible. This might satisfy the viewer, who now knows what is going on, but the observed couple could feel differently about it.

– Carla Hoekendijk

Liang Zhao ° 1971, Dandong (China)
Lives and works in Beijing (China)


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