In different ways and with diverse media, the Dutch\/German artists Katrin Korfmann and Jens Pfeifer investigate cultural identities and juxtapose unfamiliar and common ideologies. The result of their three-month residency at the Chinese European Art Centre is a surprising manifest of how entrenched we are in our own culture, even though we are living and creating art in a globalized world where we can easily set up a temporary studio on the other side of the earth.<\/p>\n

In Korfmann\u2019s new body of works she allows for realism, documenting human behavior that leads to a uniform result. In various places collective rituals are photographed: rituals sustained by individual euphoria in which colour \u2013 or colourful garment \u2013 dissolves all individuality. This uniformity consists of freely deployed \u2018closed ranks\u2019 and shows a euphoric play. The work presents a painterly, varied flurry of colours but on closer inspection, it reveals a physical, material essence of individuals who blend together into one large organism through their common actions.<\/p>\n

\u201cWen ji qi wu\u201d is the title of the large-scale photograph (270 x 385 cm) shown in the exhibition. During her residency at CEAC Korfmann devised, designed and carried out a \u2018fake\u2019 ritual that took place during Easter: Korfmann created special costumes and a choreography together with the dance students of Xiamen University and their teacher, Professor Li. The picture is a result of her made up ritual merging the European tradition of collecting hard-boiled colored eggs during Easter celebration with a Chinese traditional dance. <\/p>\n

Jens Pfeifer\u2019s work evolves out of his personal context and appears in various materials to enrich and emphasize his narrative. In search for objects which represent a personal though still Chinese identity, Pfeifer found once again that we most strongly connect our cultural identity to typical phenomena of local or regional expressions of nature.<\/p>\n

At CEAC, Pfeifer exhibits two installations that deal with this manifestation of \u2018nature in culture\u2019. The first one, called \u201cElevated Nation\u201cis a stack of glass tubes in the shape of bamboo, which reaches for the ceiling but is bound to collapse when carried out to its end.
\nThe second is a series of hammered stainless steel objects. These depict some of China\u2019s holy mountains but are titled after Pfeifer\u2019s own personal saints. \u201cI-Shan\u201d, \u201cJ-Shan\u201d, \u201cK-Shan\u201d (to be continued). <\/p>\n

At first glance the material holds no association with the context. Pfeifer offers with this contradiction a different perception. What we see is not what we get as the work has it\u2019s own rules. <\/p>\n