“REWIND <> FAST-FORWARD: CHINESE CONTEMPORARY ART”
No. 181 Middle Jiangxi Road, G/F, Shanghai, China 200002 Open daily from 10am-10pm Vernissage: 5th September, 2007 4-7pm Exhibition on show from 6th September – 10th November, 2007
Featuring works by Chen Liangjie, Chen Qiang, Chen Yun, Hu Youben, Ji Ji, Li Lei, Ma Han, Qin Chong, Shang Xuhong, Shao Fan, Sun Liang, Xue Tao, Yang Bo, Yang Liming, Yin Yanhua, Zhang Hao, Zhang Huan, Zhan Wang
Contrasts Gallery presents “REWIND <> FAST-FORWARD: CHINESE CONTEMPORARY ART”, an exhibition that encourages a re-evaluation of Chinese contemporary art. Art from China is still widely perceived in the West as being largely concerned with political protest art in the guise of ‘Political Pop’, characterised by images of Mao and propaganda poster motifs, or ‘Cynical Realism’ characterised by laughing faces. It is widely felt in China, and increasingly so abroad, that although work of this nature held interest and relevance in the late 1980s and early 1990s, work of this kind has at times been produced cynically for the voracious appetite of collectors in the west, who do not have an understanding of Chinese culture and tradition beyond outdated notions of repression, and fascination with images of Mao presented in a western ‘pop’ aesthetic.
The present exhibition aims to dispel the myth that artists have sprung fully formed onto the international stage and to show that much of the most interesting work produced by the first, second, and third generation of Chinese contemporary artists can be seen as a synthesis of the rich traditions and cultural identity of China with an international contemporary visual language. The exhibition aims to introduce the public from China and abroad to a more complete picture of contemporary artistic practice and to move the discourse on from the superficial and the purely commercial to a more considered engagement.
REWIND << China has 5,000 years of culture that is rich in traditions which should, and do, inform some of the most interesting work being produced today. Over the past century, China has suffered from three major cultural collapses:
In 1905, the literati examinations were abolished. These had been the established system of entrance into the government administration, which was regarded as one of the highest achievements that one could make. The literati examination was characterised by its breadth of focus, which encouraged diverse scholarship and the development of skills from science to calligraphy and landscape painting. Art was an integral part of intellectual development and recognition.
In 1919, the May Fourth Movement led to China taking on Western values and approaches. The West was viewed as being progressive and anything that was identifiably Chinese was regarded as being backward. This led to a blind acceptance of the West and dissociation with traditional Chinese culture.
The last, of course, was the Cultural Revolution, which advocated the destruction of the ‘four olds’: Old Customs, Old Culture, Old Habits, and Old Ideas. This eschewed both Western influence and Chinese traditional culture along with eliminating capitalism, banning religion, and destroying Confucian temples and ancient fortifications.
With the opening up of China, there has been a re-engagement with tradition and artists’ works are informed by, and reference, such diverse influences as Confucianism, Song dynasty poets, and Chinese landscape painting. Rather than eliminate all that is Chinese in their work, artists are re-engaging with a sense of national identity. They are looking at what was lost in order to understand who they are. By not blindly accepting the dominance of western aesthetic, they are challenging what it is to be ‘cool’.
REMIX Since the opening up of China, the rapid urbanisation and the bombardment of the consumer age have massively influenced life on the Mainland, and this is reflected in the best of contemporary Chinese art. Since the reformation, there has been a major western influence on contemporary culture from dress to Hollywood movies. The Chinese have been confronted by and bombarded with western culture. This has led to an assimilation and integration of aspects of western culture into Chinese culture, and it is reflected in the synthesis of western techniques and Chinese mindset. Although works may use media that are not regarded as traditionally Chinese, the mindset behind the works is still based on Chinese traditional philosophy.
Essentially, Chinese artists have adopted the concept of western media and, in doing so, they create works that resemble conceptualism in terms of aesthetic value. Rather than portray and incorporate the ‘idea’ behind an object, they concentrate on their own expression, creating works and images which grasp their own Chinese culture. However, the artists fused the Western influence with their Chinese traditions to create a very different expression. Many works that appear conceptual are actually inspired from the artists’ emotions and sentiments.
>> FAST-FORWARD Where should Chinese Contemporary Art go from here? It should reflect the rich traditions of visual culture while acknowledging its place at the heart of the modern world. By embracing an international language and fusing it with their rich cultural tradition, Chinese artists will produce work of world importance.
This synthesis is happening throughout Chinese culture with Chinese hip-hop and rap and so on. Chinese artists are engaging with performance and are exhibiting on the international stage. This re-engagement with traditions and synthesis of Chinese and Western influences will lead to a loss of self-consciousness and a new confidence in defining a new cultural identity.
“THE ESSENCE OF CHINESE SENSIBILITIES: CONTEMPORARY ART & DESIGN”
No. 133 Middle Sichuan Road, 5/F, Shanghai, China 200002, Open daily from 10am-10pm Vernissage: 6th September, 2007 6-9pm Exhibition on show from 7th September – 15th November, 2007
Featuring works by Rodrigo Almeida, Maarten Baas, Mattia Bonetti, Patrice Butler, André Dubreuil, Shao Fan, Studio Makkink & Bey, Peter Ting, WOKmedia, XYZ Design
Contrasts Gallery will open the exhibition The Essence of Chinese Sensibilities: Contemporary Art & Design to present industrial design in a Chinese context and to challenge Western preconceptions of industrial design, which are limited to designs made by industry. In China, where there is neither industry nor advanced technology and materials, designers are working with artisans who specialise in Chinese art and craft to realise their works. Contrasts Gallery has commissioned international and Chinese multi-disciplinary artists and designers to use “traditions” to create handmade artworks that speak of contemporary Chinese culture and its reaction to 5,000 years of Chinese traditions and social issues.
WOKmedia is a London-based design partnership, which has been in residency in Shanghai sponsored by Contrasts Gallery. Working with traditional furniture-makers, the design duo has produced a collection of furniture entitled Made in China. The designs incorporate hand carved wood toys into the structure of antique Chinese furniture, including pieces like low stools, which were previously used by farmers. The seemingly innocent children's toys emerge from a world hidden inside childhood memories; specifically, these mass produced toys invade antique Chinese furniture, threatening their traditional past and revealing a surreal and terrifying landscape of derailed trains and drowning babies. Inside the chaos, there is an unexplored world that makes us question our realities.
XYZ Design, a group of Chinese designers, whose work was recently collected by the Weisman Foundation, will be presenting a chair and sofa from the new Fake series. Materials from fake luxury brand handbags are juxtaposed and used to upholster a chair that is a hybrid of traditional Chinese and western Rococo styles. The result is a bombardment of visual stimuli, which reflects the rapid changes in China, the onslaught of consumer culture, and the aspirations of a new generation of Chinese people.
Shao Fan’s deconstructed functional combinations of traditional Ming style furniture and modern materials reflect how traditions interact with Chinese contemporary culture. In 1995, he created his first series of sculptural works based on Chinese Ming furniture. Provoked by what he perceived as the ‘dishonesty’ of the antique trade, Shao combined broken portions of antiquities with new industrial materials. Believing that all antiquities should be preserved in their original form, Shao’s ‘restored’ pieces emphasised the new work’s industrial identity and loss of ‘old spirit’. Thus, Shao created a contrasting visual language, a new but distinctive aesthetic that embraced Orient and Occident, past and present, and typified China cerca 1995.
Mattia Bonetti’s hand-polished and welded metal ‘Stone Stacking’ plays with organic forms, resulting in a sculptural yet functional side table/stool. The piece reflects Bonetti’s surreal artistry, which can be seen in his works since the 1980s. Bonetti has exhibited at the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Guggenheim in New York City, and the Georges Pompidou Center, among other distinguished institutions and galleries of art and design.
In Transience… Liang Juhui Memorial Exhibition Contrasts Gallery special exhibition space: No. 500 S. Ruijin Road, Building 4, Shanghai, China 200032 Vernissage: 7th September, 6:30pm-8pm Exhibition dates: 8th September-15th November, 2007
Liang Juhui passed away on 22nd May, 2006 at the age of 47 due to a sudden heart attack. We wish to honour him through making his work known through his first retrospective exhibition in Shanghai.
Liang Juhui was one of the forefathers of avant-garde art in China and one of the first Chinese artists to make an impact on the international art world. He was an extremely versatile artist working and switching between media with great ease, using sculpture, photography, video and performance.
Liang Juhui was born in April 1959 in Guangzhou. He studied painting at the Guangzhou Institute of Fine Art. He was a key member of the Southern Artist Salon in the mid 80s and one of the founders of the Big Tail Elephant Workgroup in the 90s. Liang Juhui was selected to represent China at the Venice Biennale in 2003. He worked in a variety of media creating complex installations and photo-based work that took as their subject the rapid development of China and its impact on everyday life.
The artist was not motivated by money or fame but by the urge to create, and shunned commercial success in favour of making complex installations. The group exhibited extensively in Guangzhou with exhibitions often organised at the very last minute and in unconventional locations such as car parks. Guangzhou was one of the first cities to embrace foreign commerce after the Cultural Revolution and this led early on to an international outlook, which has informed much of the contemporary art produced there.
The forthcoming exhibition will be hosted by Contrasts Gallery in a converted Plastics Factory in Ruijin Road and will consist of several major installation pieces. In “Paradise”: a room constructed out of bamboo, Liang Juhui has used mirrors, electric lights and other effects to create environments in which the audience participates. He aimed to “emphasise transparency, experiences of space and its expansion, in order to incite one’s association, insight and hallucination”. These effects alter the perceptions of the audience.
In China, the Big Tail Elephants exhibited mainly as a group and only exhibited as individuals abroad. In 1998, the group had a major exhibition in Bern, Switzerland, which brought them to international attention. Liang Juhui also took part in many other group exhibitions internationally at such distinguished venues as P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; The Venice Biennale; The Guangzhou Triennial; The Kwangju Biennale, Korea; Museo de Arte Contemporarneo de Monterrey, Mexico; and the Hayward Gallery, London.
