Daniel Blau Gallery - Andi Schmied's - Jing Jin City

Andi Schmied's 'Jing Jin City' is a series of photographs of Jing Jan, which is an area an hour away from Beijing. The city is home to a development of 3,000 luxury villas, alongside a Hyatt Regency hotel, golf courses, entertainment complexes a huge display of a wealthy suburban town. The "new city" was built to show ideals of environmental sustainability as well as material comfort.

While many of these buildings were still under construction Andi occupied the empty buildings, creating sculptural and architectural installations in the spaces, which she then went on to photograph. Using objects in the "new city" she created these sculptural pieces of art, such as balancing the window panes against each other in a pyramid like structures in a concrete space. Also adding cut grass to one of the cold concrete rooms to make it seem like living carpet.

In the exhibition itself displayed was a selection of Andi's photographs alongside a glossy catalogue produced by the district government, which portrays lavishly furnished family homes and a thriving community. In think that in the exhibition the photographs themselves should have been printed really large almost life size to really draw on the cold concrete settings of these large lavish newly built homes.

In the exhibition you walk through the door seeing first Sofia Valiente's 'Miracle Village' series which shows a small community of Miracle Village which is located outside a rural area of Palm Beach County, Florida. It is home to over 100 sex offenders, who haven't found housing anywhere else. By showing these two series next two one another they make each other strong. First seeing the poorer area and small homes, for people who are classed as monsters and criminals pushed to the outskirts of an area  in the 'Miracle Village  to then walk further into the exhibition to see the lavish large villas created for the government and rich families in the 'Jing Jin City'. However there is some contradictions the miracle village is home to many and full of life and character, even though not viewed very positively, the Jing Jan City, is amazing, large and luxurious should be viewed as amazing however through Andi's photographs depict that cold concrete building site empty feel to this new city. Even though Andi is concerned with architectural and urban spaces, and Sofia's work depicts human faces and relations, both series of photographs, work well alongside one another.

Sofia Valiente, "Mike", 2013

Andi Schmied, "Glass House", 2014

I really like how Andi uses found objects and parts of the structure to create these sculptural architectural art works that distracts the viewer from the cold constructions but instead allows us to look closely at the whole image. By individually looking at each sculpture she has made spaced around the particular location she has chosen builds character allowing this empty home to create a life of their own. Construction of this city began in 2002, however the majority of the properties remain uninhabited, leaving this "new city" abandoned and lifeless.