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Item: I Will Die

Yang Zhenzhong

2000

Video, 00:11:36.
Materials:

Collection: Collection M HKA, Antwerp / Collection Flemish Community (Inv. no. BK007715).

For the multi-channel projection I Will Die, Yang Zhenzhong filmed friends of different ages and from different social backgrounds while looking at the camera and repeating the words "I will die" in their native language. Then he took his project to the streets and filmed anyone who was ready to face the camera and say "I will die".

The younger people were more carefree than the elderly and the sick people, who were more reluctant to utter the sentence because ‘die’ is a word that brings back luck according to Chinese social traditions.

Short snippets confront the viewer with existential questions. The work challenges the viewer to meditate on mortality and immortality, truth and lies, facade and sincerity, fiction and reality. Yang Zhenzhong has gained wide recognition with this work. This work has several versions - due to differences in religion, culture and tradition, the sentences pronounced vary according to the different nationalities.

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About M HKA / Mission Statement

The M HKA is a museum for contemporary art, film and visual culture in its widest sense. It is an open place of encounter for art, artists and the public. The M HKA aspires to play a leading role in Flanders and to extend its international profile by building upon Antwerp's avant-garde tradition. The M HKA bridges the relationship between artistic questions and wider societal issues, between the international and the regional, artists and public, tradition and innovation, reflection and presentation. Central here is the museum's collection with its ongoing acquisitions, as well as related areas of management and research.

About M HKA Ensembles

The M HKA Ensembles represent our first steps towards initiating the public to today's art-related digital landscape. With the help of these new media, our aim is to offer our artworks a better and fuller array of support for their presentation and public understanding.