Li Qing :Rear Windows

By Lauren Long

A neon sign that read “Rear Windows” protruded from the facade of Prada’s beautifully restored Rong Zhai mansion in Shanghai, advertising Li Qing’s solo show within, which conjured the historic Beaux-Arts-style building’s heyday of the 1920s and ’30s, when such signs were in vogue. Inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s classic 1954 film in which the wheelchair-bound protagonist spies on his neighbors, Li’s “Rear Windows” invited viewers to examine the evolving states of metropolises like Shanghai.

Installation view of LI QING’s “Rear Windows,” at Prada Rong Zhai, Shanghai, 2019. All photos by Zhuhai. All images courtesy the artist and Prada Rong Zhai.

An eccentrically pink, imposing portrait of a Chinese woman, Images of Mutual Undoing and Unity – Ghosts No. 4 (2019), hung in the center of the entrance hall, her penetrating stare greeting incoming visitors. Drawing viewers in with its eerie aura, the work reveals faint shadows of a superimposed image. The composition is in fact a fusion of a photograph of Rong Zongjing⎯the Nationalist tycoon who owned and resided in the property until his departure for Hong Kong in 1938⎯and his imaginary granddaughter created by the artist in an amalgamation of past and present, reality and fantasy...READ MORE