Hu Jieming 胡介鸣

Timely adoption of new technologies earned Hu Jieming the reputation of being a pioneering Chinese digital media artist, and he is known for works that attempt to deconstruct time and layer historical and contemporary elements of Chinese culture. Among Hu’s best-known works is an installation that compresses a century of innovation and change into 1,100 minute-long videos, displayed simultaneously through cloth storage units. Equally acclaimed, his Raft of the Medusa (2002) appropriation work references Théodore’s Géricault’s eponymous 1819 painting of the aftermath of a historical shipwreck. In the composite photograph, a motley sampling of hedonistic youth seem oblivious to the peril they face on the raft, a metaphor for lack of sustainability of an excessively consumerist society. Through his work, Hu strives to reveal the interconnectedness of the digital universe, imagining, as he describes it, “a kind of socialism of the future.”