Fences
Yang Zhenzhong
杨振中
Production date
2013
Object Detail
Media
steel, cast iron, mirrors, electric lights
Measurements
145 x 1012 x 40 cm
Notes
Fences (2013), like many of Yang Zhenzhong's works, plays on notions of the ambiguity of perception, the ubiquity of surveillance and the pleasures of voyuerism. Walking into the space of the installation is like entering a prison. Barred mirrors line two sides of the room. In front of them, on the floor, are small metal stools. Approaching the mirror, you see yourself, and others in the room, behind bars. You watch them, watching you.
A later iteration of this work was shown at Arrow Factory in Beijing, an art space in a small hutong lane, Yang Zhenzhong sealed off the space, leaving only a fenced-off window on the street-facing wall. Critic Lu Mingjun said, 'In all likelihood, no one noticed that the window used interrogation room glass. Looking into the window, the viewer saw only their own reflection and the street behind them, and could not see anything in the room, but everything outside could be seen from within the room, and so he placed a camera in the room facing the window to collect everything that passed through the window. Yang Zhenzhong had subverted the surveillance structure of the jail interrogation room. Usually, the surveiller outside the interrogation room can clearly see the entire interrogation process inside, while the interrogator and interrogated cannot see outside, but Yang Zhenzhong installed the glass in reverse, turning those outside into the object of viewing or surveillance (or the prisoner), and the inside into the viewer or surveiller.'
A later iteration of this work was shown at Arrow Factory in Beijing, an art space in a small hutong lane, Yang Zhenzhong sealed off the space, leaving only a fenced-off window on the street-facing wall. Critic Lu Mingjun said, 'In all likelihood, no one noticed that the window used interrogation room glass. Looking into the window, the viewer saw only their own reflection and the street behind them, and could not see anything in the room, but everything outside could be seen from within the room, and so he placed a camera in the room facing the window to collect everything that passed through the window. Yang Zhenzhong had subverted the surveillance structure of the jail interrogation room. Usually, the surveiller outside the interrogation room can clearly see the entire interrogation process inside, while the interrogator and interrogated cannot see outside, but Yang Zhenzhong installed the glass in reverse, turning those outside into the object of viewing or surveillance (or the prisoner), and the inside into the viewer or surveiller.'
Accession number
2013.201