by Richard Widmer, China 2012, 68'
| SHOT BY Richard Widmer, Zhang Sheng-bin, Vivian Xu, Zhang Yi-chi, Zhang Bo | PRODUCERS: Ben Tsiang, Chang Chi-lan | |
| SOUND: Wang Chang-rui | PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION: CNEX Foundation Limited | |
| EDITING: Rick Widmer | LANGUAGE: Chinese; subtitles: English, Italian | |
| MUSIC: Peter Elijah Wong, Eddie Chan |
Presented at Lo schermo dell'arte Film Festival 2013The film is a backstage look at artist Zhan Wang’s utopian project, My Personal Universe, created in 2012 for a show of the same name at the Ullens Center of Contemporary Art in Beijing, sponsored by Louis Vuitton. In the documentary, the director follows the wanderings undertaken by the Chinese conceptual sculptor to produce the spectacular event at the center of the pieces it comprises: the explosion of a massive boulder in Shandong province, the artist’s recreation of the birth of the Universe.
This artificial Big Bang, which Wang had filmed from different angles, using six super-HD tele-cameras, at 2000 frames a second, started a multichannel video-installation and an environmental installation composed of over 7000 steel sculptures suspended in the exhibition space, each one representing a fragment of the exploded boulder. Noted for his impossible feats, such as Mount Everest Project: To the Summit, Everest 8853.5 m (2004) in which he scaled the lofty peak to plant a metal rock, Zhan Wang is currently among the protagonists of Passage to History: 20 Years of La Biennale di Venezia and Chinese Contemporary Art, a side-show of the 55th Biennale di Venezia, curated by Lü Peng and Achille Bonito Oliva.
Richard Widmer
Born in Boston, he has directed many cinema and TV productions in the USA and China, collaborating with the most important Chinese contemporary artists. Director of the Film Arts Department, at the Today Art Museum, Beijing, from 2007 to 2010, in 2011 he founded Zn Artifacts, a platform dedicated to Chinese art and culture. His latest documentary, The Venice Interviews, is being shown at the 55th Biennale di Venezia, as part of Passage to History: 20 Years of La Biennale di Venezia and Chinese Contemporary Art.
Selected filmography
2008 American Fair; 2010 Dance Language (co-produced by Chinese Disabled Peoples Foundation & Unicef); 2013 The Venice Interviews