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Chris Karr

Review: Cheng Xinhao: Silver... and Other Elements

Updated: Sep 19

White wall with text and display from Cheng Xinhao.

“Cheng Xinhao: Silver… and Other Elements,” Installation view at Contemporary at Blue Star, San Antonio 2024. Courtesy of Contemporary at Blue Star, Photo credit Beth Devillier. 


At San Antonio’s Contemporary at Blue Star, Cheng Xinhao: Silver... and Other Elements immerses viewers into the landscape of southern China. It is a four-channel video installation, located at the edge of the gallery space. The installation is adjacent to other exhibits, including Kaysaypac: Portraits and Figures by Leeanna Chipana, The C& Center of Unfinished Business, and Xicanx: Dreamers + Changemakers | Soñadores + creadores del cambio. 

The beginning of Cheng’s video places the viewer amid a river, where A Tiao, the narrator, picks up coins that he’s placed in the water. With the way the videos are laid out, the viewer must turn back and forth to see what is happening on all four channels, with each displaying their own scenery of the mountainous forest. A Tiao conveys that the coins he holds are not ordinary. They are called “Old Coins” by the Mang people, who are split between south China’s Yunnan Province and Vietnam. He details how the coins are of uncertain origin and are used by the Mang people for wedding purposes, describing how a man must present a coin or two to his mother-in-law. Afterward, the coins cannot be used again. The coins are of no commercial value in other areas of contemporary China. Cheng created casts of these “Old Coins,” which sit in an enclosure that is adjacent to the entrance of the gallery room. The coins are silver in color, containing the imagery of a seated woman and an unknown language on the other. 

  The Mang, whose elders say came from the mountains, were once whole, and are now split, between two lands. A Tiao lives in China, but his brother married a Vietnamese woman and now lives in Vietnam. Upon a visit, A Tiao’s brother handed him three “Old Coins.” The coins are the running thread between the various ethnic groups of this region, both in the past and now. This land is not only divided by the borders of China and Vietnam, but also, coexisted in by the Mang, the Yao, the Lahu, and the Miao peoples. 

“Cheng Xinhao: Silver… and Other Elements,” Installation view 2 at Contemporary at Blue Star, San Antonio 2024. Courtesy of Contemporary at Blue Star, Photo credit Beth Devillier.

Narration accompanies all four screens at once. At times, A Tiao’s reporting is backed up by sounds of nature, such as flowing water streams, or rustles of wind. In one channel, A Tiao reveals how he once caught fire during an attempt to make gunpower, an event that led his brother and mother-in-law to visit him in China. Old Coins sit behind a fire as he tells us the story. The title of this show made sense at that moment. Projections showcase the different elements; water, earth, air, and fire. Each of the four elements ties back to the land, and to the coins that the narrator embeds them in.  

Art has the power to act as a bridge between our shared stories, cultures, and experiences. Something that does not get lost on me is how the various landscapes depicting the two geographic regions of China and Vietnam are undifferentiable in Cheng’s installation. The land is porous, and people continue to travel back and forth between the two countries, including A Tiao. San Antonio was once part of Mexican territory. Elements of Mexican culture persist both in Mexico and the United States, just as the Mang culture exists in both China and Vietnam. 

“Cheng Xinhao: Silver… and Other Elements,” Installation view of the front of an Old Coin, 2024. Courtesy of Cheng Xinhao.

“Cheng Xinhao: Silver… and Other Elements,” Installation view of the back of an Old Coin, 2024. Courtesy of Cheng Xinhao.

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