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Galerie Urs Meile, Beijing-Lucerne: BIG SHOW � XIE NANXING Wang Xingwei � one-man show - 8 Nov 2008 to 11 Jan 2009 Current Exhibition |
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Xie Nanxing
The First Round With a Whip No. 3 (also known as "The Wave No. 3") 2008, oil on canvas, 219 x 384 cm |
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BIG SHOW � XIE NANXING November 8 - January 11, 2009 Opening: November 8, 2008, 4 p.m. - 7 p.m. If I were to describe Xie Nanxing (b. 1970, Chongqing), I would call him a rabid perfectionist, probably the perfectionist par excellence in the art of setting enthralling visual traps aimed to deliberately bewitch and faze the viewer. With the commitment and manic precision of a spider, Xie Nanxing spends over two months spinning each of his pictorial webs, eventually creating an incredibly variegated and almost hallucinatory texture of colour and light with the power to ensnare passing observers' eyes and trigger their unconscious desires and fears. In reference to the series of three 220x385 cm oil paintings created in 2008, Xie Nanxing makes one of his distinctive, seemingly innocuous assertions: "When, under casual circumstances, somebody misstates a word and happens to utter unpredictable and bizarre formulations - for example, I want to say 'glass', I have a glass clear in my mind, but I end up saying 'bread' instead - such 'mistakes' always involve a primary desire, the insatiable desire for expression". Far beyond a mere allusion to the theory of the Freudian slip (lapsus linguae, or 'slip of the tongue'), Xie Nanxing's pronouncement conceals his real interest: to orchestrate, by means of transposing the concept of the 'slip of the tongue' on canvas, an alluring yet unfair game that the artist plays not only with the observer, but also with himself. One of Xie Nanxing's targets - or so it seems - is to destabilize and surprise the viewer (himself included) by the calculated insertion of what could be regarded as 'slips of the eye', booby-traps that the artist sets in advance with strategic accuracy. With these 'mistakes', Xie Nanxing stalks new possibilities for his artistic experimentation and, at the same time, serves up unfocussed visual mysteries that relentlessly tease spectators' acknowledged logical perception of the image. Xie Nanxing consistently and purposely constructs technical barriers in order to create a distance between his original expressive intent and the final result - the painted canvas. If the source material for the photo-realistic works of the late 1990s rested strictly on photography and its distorting effects (fish-eye lenses, over- or under-exposed light, unconventional angle shots), since 2001, the number of media employed by the artist in the multi-layered preparatory process has increased in number, series after series. In each work from 2008, for example, the reference photographs that Xie Nanxing shot directly from a TV screen are preceded respectively by still frames from the video of a source painting visually altered by being flipped and back-lit. Each of the three small-sized source paintings is in turn inspired by one of three sketches - and these represent the first such occurrence among Xie Nanxing's productions the artist made based on images from advertisement billboards he chanced to see in Beijing that captured his imagination. Previously, Xie Nanxing's works were more closely related to elements derived from reality - albeit knowingly misrepresented. The 2008 series infiltrates a completely visionary, flustered, cartoon-like parallel world in which dark figurative forms slowly emerge in their full intensity after a long contemplation of what, at first sight, looks like a fuzzy, semi-abstract composition. "Painting is like a show window", Xie Nanxing proclaims, "you can place everything in there - any specific object or something you just painted by yourself - and yet somehow always convey the impression of a visible and 'objective' reality. Painting has such a vast capacity, it is such a humongous space...I just let this distance exist...many spaces do not need to be filled completely". The works belonging to the 2008 series come wreathed in a semi-transparent, vividly blue atmosphere in which formally simplified figures appear suspended, as if floating in a liquid element. On this point, the artist confides: "This is the bluest and most mischievous series of works I have ever painted. This mischievousness resides, among other things, in the fact that the surface of these paintings visually invokes distinct layers of swaying waves whose unceasing movements render the figures in the depths not readily identifiable". When viewing Xie Nanxing's paintings from the 2008 series, spectators' eyes, like a camera lens focusing, start an attentive process of image-detection. As if the canvasses were film negatives placed against a luminous source, nebulous human shapes gradually come into relief, thrust to the fore by the artist's painted light intruding from behind. If a harsh, alienating glare seems to physically transfix the subjects from the back, generating an impression of aggressive intrusion in Xie Nanxing's works from the so-called "billiard tables" series (2005), the pictorial rendering of the light in the 2008 series imparts an even more uncanny and disquieting feeling. In the recent blue series, this perception is further exacerbated by the monochromatic synthesis of the subjects with the background, as well as by Xie Nanxing's pictorial use of inverted light and darkness, in a manner reminiscent of the engraving process characterized by xylography - a technique all too familiar to Xie Nanxing from his specialised studies at the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute. With their evanescent, elongated, comic-strip bodies and their almost completely obliterated features, the characters crowding Xie Nanxing's 2008 works swarm like eerie phantoms that, behind a childlike appearance, hide ambiguous and unspeakable secrets. As soon as the viewer registers such elements as the exact same uniform worn by the subjects in all three works, or the much taller, differently-clothed human figure with raised hands and an inexplicable smirk on its face that towers in the middle of the group in the first canvas, the search for a conceptual connection among the canvasses takes flight. The observer's voyeuristic lusting to disrobe the truth and unearth the plot of a story might, however, be requited with an unexpected lash of the whip, as suggested by the title of the series The First Round with a Whip (No. 1, 2, 3), also known as The Wave (No. 1, 2, 3). "Education is often somehow related to punishment", art professor Xie Nanxing sardonically affirms. "Education might be an occasion to attain mutual satisfaction...if I staged all this in my current works, it is in order to let the bellwether and the younger sheep following it mutually fulfill their wishes. Perhaps this is the finest result of education". Just what is this desire, this wish that Xie Nanxing brands 'romantic'? As director of his "big show of yearnings", Xie Nanxing plays along with the observer, slips himself right into the game and then, eventually, his ultimate hope perhaps is simply to be unmasked. Text: Nataline Colonnello Wang Xingwei � one-man show November 8 � December 7, 2008 Opening: November 8, 2008, 4 p.m. - 7 p.m Wang Xingwei 1969 born in Shenyang, Liaoning Province, China lives and works in Shanghai, China Solo Exhibitions 2008 "Wang Xingwei � one-man show", Galerie Urs Meile, Beijing-Lucerne, Beijing, China 2007 "Wang Xingwei � Large Rowboat", Galerie Urs Meile, Beijing-Lucerne, Beijing, China "Wang Xingwei � Large Rowboat", Galerie Urs Meile, Beijing-Lucerne, Lucerne, Switzerland 2004 "Interlinked Dreams", Galerie Urs Meile, Beijing-Lucerne, Lucerne, Switzerland 2003 "Fostered Art", ShanghArt Gallery, Shanghai, China 2001 "Still Paint � Wang Xingwei & Chen Danqing", China Art Archives & Warehouse (CAAW), Beijing, China 1996 "The Dust of the Romantic History of Male Heroism", Museum of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing, China Selected Group Exhibitions 2008 Opening Exhibition, Nam June Paik Art Center, Suwon-Seoul, South Korea "Mahjong: Contemporary Chinese Art from the Sigg Collection", The University of California, Berkeley Art Museum, Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, USA "Our Future: The Guy & Myriam Ullens Foundation Collection", Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, China "Sky", Red Space, Beijing 798 Art District, Beijing, China "Community of Tastes", La Exposici�n Inaugural del Centro de Arte Contempor�nea Iberia, Iberia Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, China "RED Aside � Chinese Contemporary Art of the Sigg Collection", Fundacio Joan Miro, Barcelona, Spain 2007 "1997-2007. Awakening From a Ten-Year Long Sleep ", Hejingyuan Contemporary Art Center, Beijing, China "Energies � Synergy", Foundation DE 11 LIJNEN, Oudenburg, Belgium "Mahjong � Chinesische Gegenwartskunst aus der Sammlung Sigg", Museum der Moderne, Salzburg, Austria "The Year of the Golden Pig � Contemporary Chinese Art from the Sigg Collection", Lewis Glucksman Gallery, Cork University College, Cork, Ireland "Strategy on Paper � Works on paper invitational", Square Gallery of Contemporary Art, Nanjing, China 2006 "Double Sound Cracker", Tang Contemporary Art, Beijing, China "From 'Polar Region' to �Tiexi District' � Contemporary Art in Northeastern China 1985-2006", Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou, China "Instants. 1st Exhibition of Left Right Art Zone", Left Right Art Zone, Beijing, China "Mahjong � Chinesische Gegenwartskunst aus der Sammlung Sigg", Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, Germany "ALLOOKSAME? / TUTTUGUALE? Art from Japan, China, and Korea", Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin, Italy 6th Shanghai Biennale, Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai, China 2005 "Show Me� Catch Me� Sight Unseen � Xie Nanxing and Wang Xingwei", China Art Archives & Warehouse (CAAW), Beijing, China "The Wall � Reshaping Contemporary Chinese Art", The Albright-Knox Art Gallery, New York, USA; Millenium Art Museum, Beijing, China "Cina. Prospettive d'Arte Contemporanea / China: As Seen by Contemporary Chinese Artists", Provincia di Milano, Spazio Oberdan, Milan, Italy "PICTORIAL DNA Made in China", Galerie Urs Meile, Beijing-Lucerne, Lucerne, Switzerland "Mahjong � Chinesische Gegenwartskunst aus der Sammlung Sigg", Kunstmuseum Bern, Berne, Switzerland "China � Contemporary Painting", Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio, Palazzo Saraceni, Bologna, Italy 2004 "Persona3", China Art Archives & Warehouse (CAAW), Beijing, China "Degenerated", Modern Chinese Art Foundation (MCAF), Gent, Belgium "The Monk and the Demon � Contemporary Chinese Art", Mus�e d' Art Contemporain, Lyon, France "Beyond Boundaries", Shanghai Gallery of Art, Shanghai, China "Silknet � Emerging Chinese Artists", Galerie Urs Meile, Beijing-Lucerne, Lucerne, Switzerland "All under Heaven", Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp (MuHKA), Antwerp, Belgium 2003 "Junction � Chinese Contemporary Architecture of Art", Shanghai Lianyang Architecture Museum, Shanghai, China Prague Biennale, Prague, Czech Republic "Open Sky � Contemporary Art Exhibition", Shanghai Duolun Museum of Modern Art, Shanghai, China "Second Hand Reality � Post-Reality", Today Art Museum, Beijing, China 2002 The 1st Guangzhou Triennial, Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou, China "Mirage", Suzhou Art Museum, Suzhou, China 2001 "Between Earth and Heaven � New Classical Movements in the Art of Today", P.M.M.K Museum voor Moderne Kunst, Oostende, Belgium "The First Chengdu Biennale", Chengdu Modern Art Museum, Chengdu, China 2000 "Fuck Off", EastLink Gallery, Shanghai, China "Unusual & Usual", Yuangong Art Museum, Shanghai, China "Portraits, Figures, Couples and Groups", BizArt, Shanghai, China "Futuro - Chinese Contemporary Art", Contemporary Art Centre (CACOM), Macau 1999 "d'APERTutto", La Biennale di Venezia, 48. Esposizione Internationale d'Arte, Venice, Italy "Zeitwenden � Rueckblick und Ausblick", Kunstmuseum Bonn, Bonn, Germany; Kuenstlerhaus & 20er Haus, Vienna, Austria "Concepts, Colors and Passions", China Art Archives & Warehouse (CAAW), Beijing, China "Modern China Art Foundation Collection", Caermersklooster - Provinciaal Centrum voor Kunst en Cultuur, Gent, Belgium "Innovations Part I", China Art Archives & Warehouse (CAAW), Beijing, China "Changing Views", Kunsthal Hof 88, Almelo, The Netherlands "China's High Potentials Canvas", Canvas International Art, Amsterdam, The Netherlands "Hsin: a Visible Spirit � Contemporary Photography from the People's Republic of China", Cypress College Photography Galleries, Cypress, USA; BC Space Gallery, Laguna Beach, USA 1998 "It's Me! ", Main Ritual Hall of the former Imperial Ancestral Temple (Workers' Cultural Palace, Forbidden City), Beijing, China "Confused... Reckoning with the Future", Kunst RAI, Amsterdam, The Netherlands "China Five Thousand Years", Guggenheim Art Museum, Bilbao, Spain "Opportunists", North Third Ring No. 10, Basement, Beijing, China 1997 "Biennale d'art Contemporain de Lyon", Lyon, France 1996 "China Now", Littmann Kultur Projekte, Basel, Switzerland; Parco Square and Kirin Art, Tokyo, Japan "China � Aktuelles aus 15 Ateliers", Artcircolo Kunstprojekt GmbH, Munich, Germany "Reckoning with the Past � Contemporary Chinese Painting", Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, UK 1994 "Put to Trial", Beijing Central Art College Gallery, Beijing, China |
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