{"id":256,"title":"Problem of Colourfulness","dimensions":"163 x 120 cm (2), 90 x 123 cm (3), 90 x 66 cm (6)","date_begin":"2000-01-01","material":"","art_status_id":13,"legal_status_id":47,"category_id":23,"platform_id":1,"deleted":false,"asset_count":6,"stream_count":0,"collection":"Collection M HKA, Antwerp / Collection Flemish Community ","cached_tag_list":"","publishing_process_id":1,"annotation":"\u003cp\u003e11 The body is central in the photo series *A Problem of Colourfulness*. Xu Zhen shows male nudes photographed from the back. Red paint suggesting blood trickles between the legs. The images evoke beauty and violence, pain and lust, life and death. The boundaries of the body are called into question.\u003c/p\u003e","date_end":null,"reference":"BK007718","stream_count_app":50,"permalink":"the-problem-of-colourfulness","description_ca":"","short_description_ca":"","description_it":"","short_description_it":"","cached_primary_asset_url":null,"cached_actor_names":"Xu Zhen","hide_from_json":false,"prev_platform_id":null,"description_uk":"","short_description_uk":"","description_tr":"","short_description_tr":"","mhka_works":true,"category":{"en":"Photography","nl":"Fotografie","fr":"Photographie"},"poster_image":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/mhka_ensembles_production/assets/public/000/000/666/large/Xu_Zhen_Problem_Of_Colorfulness_2000_3.jpg?1302604769","poster_credits":"(c)image: M HKA","translations":[{"locale":"en","short_description":"","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe body is central in the photo series \u003ci\u003eThe Problem of Colourfulness\u003c/i\u003e. Xu Zhen shows male nudes photographed from the back, in all their vulnerability. The poses of the juvenile men are unheroic and vulnerable. The idea of transgression is indicated by a subtly painted drip of red paint trickling between the legs, as if it were menstruation blood. Although these photographs might hint at homosexual practices or possibly sexual aggression, evoking beauty and violence, pain and lust, life and death. Though the boundaries of the body are called into question in these photographs, the artist considers them as a playful take on the politics of sexuality. For Xu Zhen they are not necessarily motivated by an emancipatory drive in relation to gender issues, nor do they deal in lowness, reducing man to his backside, as the orifice for the passing of shameful waste. There is nothing abject in these pictures, but rather an insistence on beauty. The drips of red paint, paired to the idealised beauty of the ephebic male bodies, causes the viewer to do a double-take. In his text\u003ci\u003e The long Striptease: Desiring Emancipation\u003c/i\u003e\u0026nbsp;(2004), Charles Merewether argues that in these works we don't exactly find \u003ci\u003ean aesthetics of emancipation\u003c/i\u003e. Rather, \"\u003ci\u003ewe are witness to a radical disenchantment with the real\u003c/i\u003e\". He continues: \"\u003ci\u003eThe subjects turn back, inward, in a perverse relation to the self and the notions of the real\u003c/i\u003e\". At the same time, the photographs remind us that we increasingly live in an image-reality in which digital operations make all kind of images believable, and that we have reached the historic moment when media and the virtual shape our environment and interfere with reality.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"locale":"nl","short_description":"","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn de fotoreeks \u003ci\u003eThe Problem of Colourfulness\u003c/i\u003e\u0026nbsp;staat het lichaam centraal. Xu Zhen toont naakte mannenlijven op de rug gefotografeerd, in al hun kwetsbaarheid. De poses van de jongemannen zijn onheroïsch en kwetsbaar. Er wordt subversie gesuggereerd door een subtiel geschilderde druppel rode verf die tussen de benen loopt, alsof het om menstruatiebloed gaat. Mogelijk zinspelen de foto’s op homoseksuele handelingen of seksueel geweld, met hun impressie van schoonheid en geweld, pijn en lust, leven en dood. Hoewel de foto’s de grenzen van het lichaam aftasten, beschouwt de kunstenaar ze als een speelse kijk op de constructie van seksualiteit. Voor Xu Zhen gaat het in deze foto’s niet zozeer om motieven van emancipatie in genderkwesties, of om vulgariteit, om mannen die worden herleid tot hun achterste, als de opening voor het afscheiden van beschamend afval. Deze afbeeldingen bevatten niets abject, integendeel: ze benadrukken schoonheid. De druppels rode verf, in combinatie met de geïdealiseerde schoonheid van de adonissen, dwingt de kijker om te herbekijken. In de tekst \u003ci\u003eThe long Striptease: Desiring Emancipation\u003c/i\u003e\u0026nbsp;(2004) stelt Charles Merewether dat we in deze kunstwerken niet echt de “\u003ci\u003eesthetiek van emancipatie\u003c/i\u003e”, maar “\u003ci\u003ewe zijn getuige van een radicale onttovering van het echte\u003c/i\u003e”. Vervolgens schrijft hij: “\u003ci\u003eDe afgebeelde personen draaien zich weg, naar binnen gekeerd, in een perverse relatie met het Zelf en de opvattingen over wat echt is.\u003c/i\u003e”\u0026nbsp;Tegelijkertijd herinneren de foto’s ons eraan dat we alsmaar meer in een werkelijkheid van beelden leven, waarin digitale bewerkingen allerlei soorten beelden geloofwaardig maken. We hebben het historische moment bereikt waarop de media en het virtuele onze omgeving vormgeven en op de werkelijkheid ingrijpen.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"locale":"fr","short_description":"","description":""},{"locale":"ru","short_description":"","description":""},{"locale":"de","short_description":"","description":""},{"locale":"es","short_description":"","description":""},{"locale":"el","short_description":"","description":""}],"actors":[{"id":176,"name":"Xu Zhen","category":{"en":"Creator","nl":"Vervaardiger","fr":"Créateur"}}]}