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Polit-Sheer-Form-Office consists of five Chinese artists who eat, drink, and play in a collective way of life associated with the Cultural Revolution — and its imposed communism — that they experienced as children. Each artist has a solo career, but each espouses a love of equality and a willingness to set aside the self for the betterment of the aggregate. More details and photos of this group’s work in Queens are on the jump page.

Library

The Queens Museum is currently exhibiting a multi-faceted PSFO show with an end date of March 8th. Such group works as Library (above, a 20’ x 24’ x 10’ blue structure in the atrium) and Fitness for All (five common exercise machines found in China’s public parks) are on view in certain open spaces. The show’s main piece, Do the Same Good Deed, will screen on four Sundays in January (all but January 24th) at noon and on a monitor at other times until closing. Done in partnership with the Times Square Alliance, this video depicts a real-life scrubbing (top photo) of 43rd and 44th streets that roughly 150 performers undertook with mops, buckets, and suds on November 3rd, 2014. A video of a similar scrubbing of a bus in Guangzhou, China, is available on a monitor. These films compare an altruistic act in a forcibly communal society to a similar one in a proudly individualist country, thus testing whether collectivism is a real social need or just a false form or a management tool. It is also the first time that PSFO, which dates to 2005, has engaged masses of people in its art.

Details: PSFO, Queens Museum, NYC Building, Flushing Meadows Corona Park, until March 8th, regular hours; featuring Do the Same Good Deed with screenings on January 3rd, 10th, 17th, and 31st at noon in the main gallery and at other times on a monitor.

Bonus detail: During the exhibit, Queen Museum’s façade is displaying a photo of Mr. Zheng (below), a digital amalgamation of the faces of PSFO members in the form of a generic identification photo.

Face

Photos: Queens Museum


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