Contrasts Gallery presents DIALOGUES AT ART DUBAI Stand A13, Madinat Arena Madinat Jumeirah Dubai, UAE
Patrons Preview: March 18, 7pm-10pm (by invitation only) Ladies’ Day Preview: March 19, 1pm-5pm Vernissage Preview: March 19, 5pm-10pm (by invitation only) Public Days: March 20-21, 12pm-8pm; March 22, 11am-5pm
DUBAI – Pearl Lam’s Contrasts Gallery will present "Dialogues" at Art Dubai. The exhibition will explore the relationships between contemporary artists from the Far East and the Middle East. Art Dubai will take place at the Madinat Jumeriah Arena, Dubai, UAE from March 19 – 22, 2008.
The artists included in the exhibition are linked through their response to the traditional values of their homeland—be it China or Iran—using calligraphy, markmaking, and the rendering of landscape in various media. The Chinese artists on view will include Ma Han, Shao Fan, Wang Tiande, Zhang Hao, and Zhang Huan. Abbas Kiarostami, Jamshid Bayrami, Samira Alikhanzadeh, Seifollah Samadian, Mehdi Saeedi, Roshanak Varasteh, Koushna Navabi, and Maryam Shirinlou will represent the contemporary Iranian art world.
Until quite recently, Chinese artists focused primarily on political art, reflecting the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution. However, the new generation has shifted to an exploration of more topical issues and personal feelings, expressed through a combination of traditional elements and modern materials.
Shao Fan illustrates this new zeitgeist. Famous for his deconstructed, non-functional combinations of traditional Ming-style furniture and modern materials, his latest work is more spiritually focused. Shao Fan illustrates this approach with his deconstructed, sculptural combinations of traditional Ming-style furniture and modern materials. Works like Moon represent his view of contemporary China, which is struggling to balance tradition with modernity.
Shanghai-born artist Wang Tiande’s mixed media works re-invent traditional Chinese calligraphy and ink brush landscape painting for contemporary culture. Digital No. 07, MH44 and MH45 are hand scrolls that combine the traditional medium of ink with burn marks. Consisting of two layers of rice paper, the landscape on top is rendered by the heat of a cigarette, which burns through the upper layer of paper to reveal glimpses of the ink-rendered landscape beneath.
Ma Han delves into landscapes from the Song and Ming Dynasties with a poet’s perspective, expressing his worries about modern cities, which are represented by rice and little figures with backpacks. His mixed media works, consisting of barbed wire, rice, fiberglass, and paint on canvas, are joyful reinterpretations of his favorite landscapes and convey what he thinks ancient people wanted to achieve in their paintings.
Iranian filmmaker and photographer Abbas Kiarostami seeks to explore spirituality though art. He derives intense spiritual meaning from nature and this is reflected in his recent focus on landscape photography. For decades, fellow photographer Jamshid Bayrami documented war and revolution as a photojournalist; he now seeks to capture Iran’s national heritage and culture through depictions of ordinary people of all cultural and ethnic varieties that reside in Iran’s cities and rural areas.
Women, children and brides have always had a strong presence in the works of Samira Alikhanzadeh. In the form of old found photographs, printed directly onto wooden boards using large digital printers and then painted, her work evokes melancholic and sometimes humorous nostalgia. Maryam Shirinlou uses mixed media collage to explore her fascination with the elegant Farsi/Arabic form of writing associated with Persian mystical poetry.
Contrasts Gallery is aptly named because its philosophy is to celebrate and exaggerate differences. Founded in Hong Kong in 1992 by Pearl Lam, Contrasts has multiple galleries in Shanghai and one in Beijing. The Gallery shows and commissions artworks from multi-disciplinary artists worldwide, who explore Western and Eastern influences on art by creating a new aesthetic that defines the dynamic changes of today.
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For more information or images, contact:
Dan Schwartz Susan Grant Lewin Associates +1 212 947 4557 dan@susangrantlewin.com
