Since his first video work, Light Source (2005), in which the grainy image of a door is split by a beam of light radiating through its slow opening, Cheng Ran (b. 1981, lives and works in Hangzhou and Amsterdam) has restlessly plumbed the physicality of the moving image, ranging from the cellphone camera to Super 8 to HD. In a pair of recent video works, an erotic spam mail Cheng Ran had received serves as a ruse. Simply Wild (2014), shot in Super 8, uses a recurring split screen, juxtaposing awkward phrasing and unabashed yearning with flickering images. Always I Trust (2014), starring Chinese film star Carina Lau, usurps the slickness of cinema into an elliptical narrative. Together, they are testimony to Cheng Ran’s ongoing engagement with the way his generation desires and consumes sound and image.
Cheng Ran’s video work will be projected on the façade of the Palais de Tokyo on the first days of the exhibition Inside China, in addition to an evening of screening in December 2014.
Cheng Ran’s video Joss (2013) will be projected on the facade of the Palais de Tokyo from October 19th to the 25th, along with an installation in Orbe New York. A screening of Cheng Ran’s works will take place on December 4th in Salle 37.