Journey to Find Love
Chen Mingqiang
陈明强
Production date
2012
Object Detail
Media
video (colour, silent)
Measurements
16 min 50 sec
Notes
Love Armour 2 (2012–2013) and Journey to Find Love (2012) explore love in a changing world. A seventeen-minute animation, Journey to Find Love creates a narrative of doubt and social change from graffiti found in corners of Beijing, most particularly in the 798 Art District. From plaintive, heartfelt outpourings such as ‘Hope I can find my Mr Right before the arrival of the end of the world…’ to the anguished ‘I was here but failed to find you, pity!’ to graphic depictions of sex acts like those scrawled on walls the world over, the graffiti reveals individual desires and aspirations. For Chen Mingqiang, the recurring theme is loneliness, in a time of great uncertainty about faith, money, family, relationships and the future.
In that same year, planning his own wedding day, and influenced by Arte Povera and Pop Art, Chen Mingqiang set out to make a wedding suit for himself and a wedding dress for his wife. Gradually these wearable artworks, constructed from everyday metal objects such as saucepan lids, and the spouts and handles of teapots, became more and more like suits of full body armour. The artist and his bride walked around Beijing in this ‘love armour’, taking photographs at tourist sites like visitors from an alien planet. The pair became art objects in a durational performance, observed by curious bystanders. The metallic clanking sounds of the armour in motion symbolized Chen Mingqiang’s emotional stress, his anxious transition from carefree youth to married man.
In that same year, planning his own wedding day, and influenced by Arte Povera and Pop Art, Chen Mingqiang set out to make a wedding suit for himself and a wedding dress for his wife. Gradually these wearable artworks, constructed from everyday metal objects such as saucepan lids, and the spouts and handles of teapots, became more and more like suits of full body armour. The artist and his bride walked around Beijing in this ‘love armour’, taking photographs at tourist sites like visitors from an alien planet. The pair became art objects in a durational performance, observed by curious bystanders. The metallic clanking sounds of the armour in motion symbolized Chen Mingqiang’s emotional stress, his anxious transition from carefree youth to married man.
Accession number
2013.029