Action-camera

This exhibition is curated by Keith Wallace and explores an aspect of performance art that is prominent in mainland China and in particular, Beijing. In mainland China, performance art is a relatively recent development with not much more than twenty years of activity. Action - Camera: Beijing Performance Photography examines the trajectory from the discreet underground performance art community centered in Beijing's 'East Village' in the early 1990s, to a current internationally recognized practice... By the late 1990s, performance art became a more clearly defined practice, and for many artists the photograph functioned not only as a document, but also as a work of art in itself. As a further development, many performances were specifically created for the camera rather than a live audience - the viewer's access to the 'performance' was exclusively through the photograph. The shift from live performance to staged photograph and the reasons behind it are a central anchor to this exhibition.