FACES OF MAY fourth

AN exhibition by NI Shaofeng, Deng huaidong und Dan-wei Zhu-Mittag

Vernissage: 17:00, 4th of MaY 2019
exhibition: May 5th - 31st 2019
Weltethos-Institut, Hintere Grabenstr. 26, 74070 Tübingen

Faces of May Fourth

One would assume that the dust has long since settled around a major historical event that took place a hundred years ago and that it would now be the task of historians to paint a clear picture of its origins and effects. The May Fourth Movement, however, resists all attempts to fit itself into the course of history. This may be because the major themes of this movement are still relevant to Chinese society: “freedom,” “democracy,” “humanism,” “science.”

To this day it’s not clear how this part of the story is linked to reality. Its true face is still obscure. Bertrand Russell once said: “The everyday benefit of philosophy is that it helps you live with uncertainty.” Art is also a means of dealing with indeterminacy by creating a space for reflection. We took the faces of actors at the time as a starting point to gain access to the blurred historical memory and to identify the true Faces of May Fourth.

面对五四

通常重大的历史事件，历经百年后会尘埃落定，历史史实基本也会水落石出，至于意义的阐释和脉络的梳理就成为历史学者的议题。但五四似乎无法固定于历史的洪流，原因是中国依然停滞于这场运动酝酿的氛围: “自由”、“民主”、“人道”、“科学”的议题至今横亘在中国社会面前。历史与现实穿插纠结，百年后的今天，这场运动面貌反而越发暧昧不明。哲人罗素曾经说过：“哲学的益处是帮人在不确定性中生活下去。” 艺术同样可以抵抗不确定的困扰，从而提供思考的空间维度。因而，我们选取了人脸这一切入点，去捕捉模糊的历史记忆，去辨识一张张含糊的面孔。故而名之曰：面对五四。