Here or There? - Lin Tianmiao and Wang Gongxin


The second chamber at Sherman Galleries proved at least as intriguing, with a complex wall of photographs by artists Lin Tianmiao and Wang Gongxin. Fifteen oval photographs portray women dressed in blue observed within black-and-white, desolate landscapes. These are works capable of provoking deep and unexpected responses, while alluding to the extreme changes flowing through China.

The stylised poses of the figures in the landscape, all female, seem to offer a requiem for an on older, more ritualistic China. The truly transcendent work in this exhibition is however, Lin's Growing 2003, a flowing photographic panorama meant to be read, appropriately, right to left. This black-and-white ribbon of a photograph depicts the epic journey of a white sphere.

Seen first as a tiny ball in a snowfield, it travels through a series of landscapes until, taller than any of the human figures nearby, it comes to rest on a rise overlooking a fertile valley. The symbolism within this work, with nude female figures accompanying the globe at every stage of its journey, is playful, restrained and ultimately unforgettable.

(c)Robert McFarlane