Farmer Du Wenda's UFO——Cai Guoqiang Studio

Farmer Du Wenda's UFO

Cai Guoqiang Studio

Du Wenda, a farmer from Anhui Province in China, spent several years earnestly building a flying saucer with local farmers. After he made national news with his invention, Sun Yuan & Peng Yu invited the creator of this primitive aerial craft, which had never been flown, to assemble and test fly his work in Venice. The differing motives behind the artists' and the farmer's desire for the test to succeed made their collaboration complex, codependent and contentious, and this dynamic became integral to the artwork. Farmer Du Wenda's UFO is a dramatic experiment that parallels the unknowns in China's open future. Farmer Du Wenda's UFO comes out a Chinese peasant's boldest yet most hilarious illusion, and the artists do not interfere with the process of production of the saucer at all. They might have expected something truly creative and original from Du Wenda's crazy idea, or perhaps they simply wanted to let the thing happen in its own way. The duo said that "this was the first time that China had a Pavilion in Venice; it was the first time too that Du Wenda took his saucer abroad; and for us it was also the first time we participated in the Venice Biennale. So everything was new and fresh, and we like to try everything a bit. So we put different things together to make those things change a bit. The outcome was totally unpredictable, just like we could not foresee our future. We still don't know yet what Chinese contemporary art will do for the world."

农民杜文达的飞碟

蔡国强工作室

杜文达，一个安徽的农民，在好几年的时间里认认真真地与几个当地村里 的朋友邻居们一起制作一个飞碟，这件事后来传遍了全国。后来艺术家就 邀请了这位自己从来没有坐过飞机，却狂热地从事于制造土飞碟的人，带着 他的作品，一起来到了威尼斯，在双年展上组装和试飞他的飞碟。在这个 项目中，杜文达和两位艺术家的动机当然各不相同，这就使得他们彼此之间 的合作变得既有趣又复杂，既离不开彼此，又相互争执，而这些外在的活力 和因素又自然转化成了作品的一部分。 孙原和彭禹善于利用不同条件和材料的相互关系构建新的组合方式以达到 意想不到的效果或者目的，农民杜文达的飞碟将所有的主动权大胆的交给 一个中国的农民，即表现出对中国农民创造力的期待，也流露出某种自然 决定论的态度。他们说：中国馆第一次来到威尼斯，杜文达第一次在国外 实验他的飞碟，我们也第一次来到威尼斯，一切都是未知和全新的，所有的 事情都来试一试。我们把不同的事物组织在一起，使所有的事物都不同于 以前，似乎都多了些内容，不要预想这些内容被组合在一起的结果就像我们 不能预计未来一样，我们还不知道中国的当代艺术到底能给世界带来什么。