Shang han za bing lun

Das ärmliche Leben derer, die hier am Ufer des Jangtse hausen, ist so monochrom wie berührend. Verlorene Gestalten im modernen China, das in monströsen Wohnblöcken und Superfrachtern präsent ist. Der Arzt, der dem suizidalen Punk Gedichte „verschreibt“; der Vagabund, der den Drachen und Erlösung sucht; die junge Frau, die dem Vaterterror in ein Kloster entflieht; der verwitwete Koch, der den Ehering mehr betrauert als den Finger, an dem er saß – sie alle leben am Rand. Geduldig webt Zhang Xinyang um sie einen Kokon aus Zuneigung und Mitmenschlichkeit, aus absurdem Humor und der Poesie des „alten China“, gibt ihnen den Raum und die Würde, die das „neue China“ ihnen verweigert. (Barbara Kronsfoth)

Poetry often dispenses with narrative to concentrate on diffuse feeling, rendered through a constellation of images capable of outlining a mood. This idea is also central to SHANG HAN ZA BING LUN, whose characters read and recite verses belonging to Xin Qiji, who wrote in the mid-12th century. They themselves are from the 21st century, broken beings who live near the Yangtze River in the city of Nanjing. There is a poet-doctor, a suicidal young man, a homeless shaman who practises Taoism, a Buddhist monk, a young woman angry with her father and a cook mourning his late wife. On the margins of an allegedly prosperous, happy China, they interact and cross paths in various settings along the river: a waste-recycling centre, a drainage tunnel, a monastery and a hospital. They are lost souls, their inner states corresponding to an outside world consisting of rubble and decay. They find consolation in the face of a devastated landscape and spiritual nihilism by steeping themselves in poetry; feeling less abandoned comes from recognising affective bonds. This symbolic constellation is usually seen in black and white (except for three colour sequences); there are striking framings and a number of long takes of impressive virtuosity. (Roger Koza)

Zhang Xinyang: MY POEM (2018, K)