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M+ Sigg Collection, Hong Kong. By donation, © Kan Xuan
On View
Sigg Galleries, 209
Kan Xuan 闞萱
A happy girl 快樂女孩
2002
Kan Xuan made A happy girl in 2002, soon after arriving in Amsterdam for an artist’s residency.
The camera frames a low-angled view, taken through a platform railing that fences a tranquil green space. A stone pedestal rests on the grass in the background, at the edge of a line of tall, leafy trees. Seconds into the video, Kan, who is naked, materialises on the pedestal’s surface. Background noise—the breeze, birds chirping—swells in and out. Kan begins posing, shifting position in time and via jump cuts before fading away. Several of her postures recall the formality of ballet or sculpture, but at other moments she dances more wildly, with apparent joy and abandon.
Kan’s fluid and abrupt motions suggest both control and liberation, static appearances and breaking free. Like Kanxuan! Ai!, another early work in which Kan calls out and responds to herself in a Beijing underground rail station, A happy girl presents the artist as a consciously and playfully composed female subject.
The camera frames a low-angled view, taken through a platform railing that fences a tranquil green space. A stone pedestal rests on the grass in the background, at the edge of a line of tall, leafy trees. Seconds into the video, Kan, who is naked, materialises on the pedestal’s surface. Background noise—the breeze, birds chirping—swells in and out. Kan begins posing, shifting position in time and via jump cuts before fading away. Several of her postures recall the formality of ballet or sculpture, but at other moments she dances more wildly, with apparent joy and abandon.
Kan’s fluid and abrupt motions suggest both control and liberation, static appearances and breaking free. Like Kanxuan! Ai!, another early work in which Kan calls out and responds to herself in a Beijing underground rail station, A happy girl presents the artist as a consciously and playfully composed female subject.
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