Rust Another 2000 Years - Shanghai Products
Zheng Guogu
郑国谷
Production date
2014
Object Detail
Media
copper
Measurements
15 pieces, dimensions variable
Notes
2000 AD and Rust Another 2000 Years (2005) consists of twelve corroded soft drink cans, their logos and images faintly revealed beneath the rust. Eleven are made of steel, and one Coca-Cola can is made of brass. Symbols of consumerist desire, and of the incursion of western mass culture into China, the cans now appear like ancient artefacts from an archaeological dig. The artwork is unfinished, says the artist, and time itself will complete the process. Like Ai Weiwei inscribing the Coca-Cola logo onto allegedly genuine Han Dynasty urns, Zheng Guogu suggests that the post-colonial exchange between east and west is a Faustian bargain. Similarly, Rust Another 2000 Years - Shanghai Products (2014) considers the shifting boundaries between local and global / past and present / art and commerce. Ordinary containers – bottles and jars of ‘Old Shanghai’ products –are reproduced as copper artefacts, together with images of landscapes and Shanghai beauties printed as shadowy negatives onto copper plates.
Accession number
2016.160