Wang Tong | Reenactment

Buy PRIVATE 50 [I] was born at the beginning of the second year of the Cultural Revolution, and spent my childhood years queuing for rations of grain and pork. It was very difficult to obtain these commodities during this period. My greatest dream was to satisfy my craving for a meat stew! However, looking back, the vast majority of my childhood recollections are of a time spent in a state of happiness. Afterwards, changes occurred, state-owned enterprises developed a contract system for work hours, state-owned homes became privatized. The reconstruction of national territory is also a dream. Formerly, high-rise buildings were only to be found in Western capitalist nations, yet they are now more and more common. Similarly, in the past, it was only in books describing the future that one might find images of high-speed motorways, stretching further and further. In the rapidly altering world of today, even remembering the events of yesterday requires imagination. One cannot yet say whether the preoccupations of the present-day are good or bad, yet we are unwilling to return to the past. Considering this, what would happen if a great figure of the past emerged from a classical portrait into the world of today?