Platform China

Each human being is composed of a series of images folded into infinite layers and contained within a thin membrane. Jin Shan takes this concept, and with notions of creation, illusion and intangibility, makes works that appear as an endless dream from which never asleep. During his creative process, he hypnotizes himself in order to channel these illusions, and to locate his own language.

Jin Shan's Water division tells a story of an encounter between a drowned body in papal costume and a lone wanderer. Superficially, the piece seems to be simply a brief description of an incident, but the extreme nature of the two characters creates an intense and darkly humorous narrative. Water division is about the act of dividing water. To divide is to separate, to split into two parts: east and west; left and right; up and down. Nevertheless the action of dividing water will inevitably remain a fruitless effort; water cut with a knife will always reform. The process is one of rescuing and drowning, splitting and melting.

Jin Shan's other video work, Lucky Star allows us an insight into his thought process. The work comprises a series of imagined fragments relating to celebration and festivities. The scenes are poetic and illusionary but are also imbued with the sensibility of New Realism. The setting and the narrative establish a perfect balance between passivity and activity. Under a spire in the darkness broken only by neon lights, nothing can be anticipated. Dictionaries and classics; crowds and flags; numbers; a fat military commander and drummer, a rope tied to the sky but leading nowhere. Lucky Star is a temporary performance, this and that, them and us, like the revelry of familiar festivals.

Both of Jin Shan's works give one the sensation of balancing on a circus rope, one end connected to the top of a spire while the other end is receding into an unknown point of infinity. The rope is woven from icons, fairy tales, wills and miracles.