UP NEXT
Wang Zhiyuan
Dictator Training Centre 独裁者培训中心
Opening Friday 20th June 2025
Please join us at Passage for the opening of ‘Dictator Training Centre’ by renowned installation artist Wang Zhiyuan on Friday 20 June from 6PM–8PM.
Originally conceived in Beijing in the 1990s, at a time when advertisements were sprayed or pasted anywhere along the rapidly building urban landscape by small private companies, colleges, and individuals seeking to put a phone number in front of eyeballs, artist Wang Zhiyuan work also touched on a sense of collective renown. He hired/instructed/dictated two labourers to construct a wall, the same dimensions as the one you see here, and spray-painted his own advertisement: "157129667 Teaching Lies." The number was there for all to call and learn from artist Wang Zhiyuan, only to be politely rebuked that, as with most of the best art, he was "only joking."
The difference between "Teaching Lies" (2005) and this Passage presentation, "Dictator Training Centre," is not only the subject matter; there is also a significant shift in the work’s structure. In "Teaching Lies," the artist included his personal phone number, it was, in a way, a personal joke. But this new work was created together with several of the organisers at Passage. They helped build the installation and now maintain a communication platform for the audience. The contact information on the work is the gallery’s, not the artist's. This excites the artist because it demonstrates his shift away from a focus on "authorial rights."
So, rather than calling this an artwork of his, the artist would say he merely provided an artistic "form." The final work is truly a collective piece, and that makes him very happy. In fact, he hopes this format can be reused by anyone, in many places, to teach different "subjects." That is the potential of art – to re-enter people’s lives and take on a role no other field can: to enable real communication.
We are living in a time utterly different from the past. On a micro level: with mobile phones and the spread of personal media, people now receive only the information they prefer. The benefit is personalisation, but the downside is fragmentation. everyone gets different information, and as a result, meaningful conversation becomes nearly impossible. Friends, spouses, parents, and children often find that all they can do is argue. Everyone seems to be a "little dictator," believing "I am always right."
On a macro level: we are now in a "post-globalisation" era, where populism is increasingly visible across regions and nations, often through media manipulation. This is fertile ground for the rise of dictators. Polarization will only worsen. "Dictator Training Centre" is meant to offer a space for conversation, for people to share and reflect on what "dictator" might mean in our current context.
Housed in Sydney's Prince Centre - a building home to a number of other private colleges offering a more vocational style syllabus. Passage is proud to present "Dictator Training Centre."
A social collaboration between artist, gallery, printers, brick movers, brick layers, structural engineers phone companies, and you, the audience. Passage presents a truly democratic dictatorship experience.
