Follow the Feeling
Guangdong Times Museum

In a 1993 article for The China Quarterly about the nation’s political climate, sociologist Thomas Gold referenced the Taiwanese pop song “Go With Your Feelings” by Su Rui, as Chinese intellects joked that its lyrics reflect how Communist leadership reacts to massive demonstrations. This interplay between popular culture and political sentiment, from Soviet Russia to modern-day Japan, formed the jumping-off point for “Follow the Feeling,” the Guangdong Times Museum’s first exhibition following a two-year hiatus. 

Throughout, curator Qu Chang attempted to deconstruct propaganda by compiling suggestive works. In Pan Lu’s and Bo Wang’s site-specific installation Ode to Infrastructure (2016– ), lightboxes on a large wall-mounted scaffolding grid depict monumental national projects, including images of the Three Gorges Dam from China Pictorial, a magazine published during China’s rapid industrialization. Adjacent to this were three separate screens and an LED scroll-like display of patriotic music videos and their lyrics, such as “Heavenly Road,” which celebrates modernization through railway projects. By isolating the music video’s protagonists, background landscapes, and lyrics across three screens, Lu and Wang subtly scrutinize how its images and words are combined to serve a particular agenda.