Debut of Feng Mengbo’s Longmarch: Restart

Feng Mengbo is on view in the first floor Painting Gallery beginning December 12, 2010.

Long March borrows imagery from arcade favorites like Street Fighter II and Super Mario Bros., along with propaganda motifs of Communist China. Feng invites visitors to direct the hero of the game—a Red Army soldier—via a wireless controller and combat the myriad enemies in his digital path. Comprising eight large-scale projections, the work creates an immersive environment in which visitors are dwarfed by the video game graphics. Like many popular games, Long March is a “horizontal scroller,” in which the hero moves from one side of the screen to the other. This movement is made physical through the scale of the installation. As the player directs the Red Army soldier across the game’s landscape, the player is forced to walk along with the character in order to keep the soldier in clear view and literally keep pace with the action.

Feng Mengbo (Chinese, b. 1966) lives and works in Beijing. He has been exhibiting his art for nearly two decades. He has had numerous solo exhibitions at such institutions as the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing; The Renaissance Society, Chicago; and the Dia Center for the Arts, New York. He has also participated in the 45th Venice Biennale; the 1st and 3rd Guangzhou Triennials; Documenta X and Documenta 11; Ars Electronica 2004; Mahjong: Contemporary Chinese Art from the Sigg Collection that debuted at Kunstmuseum Bern, Switzerland; and Between Past and Future: New Photography and Video from China at the International Center for Photography, NY; among other exhibitions.

Feng Mengbo is organized by Klaus Biesenbach, Director of MoMA PS1 and Chief Curator at Large at The Museum of

Modern Art. Major support for the exhibition is provided by The International Council of The Museum of Modern Art.