Category: Contemporary

Categories
Contemporary

Contemporary | Slime Engine – new digital world

[:en]Slime-Engine[:]

Why Slime Engine

Enter the Shanghai-based collective’s interactive shows, hosted in dystopian amalgamations of well-known cities. In oceanic abysses, on roller coasters and desert islands.COVID-19 has instigated an onslaught of online initiatives that have saturated the digital art world with fairs, exhibitions, social-media campaigns. In an attempt to play catchup to a now overwhelmingly online industry. While many institutions have scrambled to repackage their programming. Others have taken this opportunity to build new models for exhibition-making and new means for connecting with audiences. Prior to the pandemic, in China, apart from ongoing projects like Rhizome (a pioneering nonprofit dedicated to new media art). Few endeavours have put forward serious efforts to cater to digital art hosted in its native environment – a void artists are, and have been, looking to fill. Slime engine.

Slime,Stand-on-the-ground
(Left) Yi-Chengtao, XXX Stands on the Ground, 2020 and (right) Shan Liang, Baby, 2019, included in Slime Engine’s exhibition Territory, 2020, internet-hosted digital work. Courtesy the artists

Shanghai-based artist collective Slime Engine, or 史莱姆引擎. Has been utilising digital space since 2017 with different projects that manipulate the user’s understanding of physical space. Possibility of place when it comes to exhibition-making for art-seekers on and offline. In a practice that is ‘as flexible as “slime” and as inclusive as a “search engine”’.

Who are the Slime Engine?

Founded by four photography students – Li Hanwei, Liu Shuzhen, Fang Yang and Shan Liang – Slime Engine treats the internet not as a replacement for physical institutions.

But as a platform with properties specific to digital and virtual media that would be nearly impossible to replicate in the ‘real world’. Although that’s not exactly how they see it.

slime-engine Inventing-Landscape Producing-the-Earth-Engine-Bar
Advent: Inventing Landscape, Producing the Earth Engine Bar

“We don’t think too much when designing exhibition spaces,” the collective tells me over an array of messages, and emails. “Many people might think we’re creating a space, but for us, these spatial forms have already been integrated into our vision.” Over the last two decades, China has become home to the world’s fastest-growing movie-industry. Coupled with that, lax copyright enforcement has seen scores of pirated Hollywood films flood streaming websites like Youku. Making the twenty-something-year-old artists of Slime Engine part of an internationally minded generation growing up with an intense exposure to special effects. “It wasn’t so much a space we created, but material we chose to use.”

Works by Slime Engine

Headlines 2020
Slime Engine, Headlines, 2020, internet-hosted digital work, dimensions variable.
Courtesy the artist

The work parodies media and broadcasting institutions, overwhelming concerns about the financial side-effects of a deadly virus with feel good. Content like ‘New century fat-reducing rave gymnastics’ where viewers can watch a five-minute video of an anime-style young woman in a very small bikini robotically perform fractured cardio in her living-room-turned-home-gym. Headlines simultaneously visualises shadows of what is. In a world that could be, through a reformatted newspaper that encourages user engagement and activity. All the while presenting us with characters that react but don’t respond.

Slime-Engine Ocean2019
Slime Engine, Ocean, 2019, digital exhibition, dimensions variable. Courtesy the artist

Slime Engine’s 2019 online/offline exhibition Ocean demands a different kind of user engagement, resembling a videogame more than any exhibition you’re likely to find in a museum or gallery. Although it is available for access on their website.I prefer the downloadable version of the program.Which enables you to have the exhibition at hand without internet access, at anytime. Surely not what Nicolas Bourriaud had in mind when he coined the term ‘relational aesthetics’: the user has no direct contact with any art ‘object’, so to speak; instead the work’s interactivity and closeness are mediated through keyboards and mouse pads.

Exhibition Ocean

The collective functions as the curator, while Slime Engine exhibit their own works as participating artists in the group show. Upon loading, the program deposits you in the middle of an endless, virtual oceanic plane surrounded by artworks hovering just above the water. But the computer installation enables the viewer to move between the videos, digital sculptures via keyboard control. Activating time-based works only when in close proximity to them. You get the sense that it exists both for you, and entirely independent of you.

slime-engine exhibition ocean
Nhozagri, Lotus Leaves Buddy In The Rain, 2019, included in Slime Engine’s exhibition Ocean, 2019, digital work, dimensions variable. Courtesy the artist

Categories
Contemporary

Contemporary | He Jing – “Made In China”

The phrase “Made In China” is synonymous with cheap, knockoff copies of major brands in fashion,
technology, furniture and numerous other industries.
Recent headlines have even gone so far as to warn
Kickstarter users to prepare to have their ideas stolen before they’re funded. The open-source manufacturing culture in the country means that thousands of small and major production operations.It could spot an idea online and begin mass producing cheaper, near-identical copies of the idea. So what
does this mean for the Chinese creative? Is there room for original design in an economy driven by the cheap cost of reproduction? It’s what Design Academy Eindhoven graduate Jing He calls the “Chinese identity crisis”. Her MA project, The Tulip Pyramid in an attempt to unpack some of the complexities of the Chinese creative scene.

Chinese identity crisis

Tulip Pyramid in Frans Hals Museum, Harlem, NL

As a Chinese designer, she is frequently asked whether her work reflects her Chinese identity. She wondered: What dose that mean? What is Chinese design? And in what way does it differ from design made by people with other nationalities? 

Tulip Pyramid, He Jing, 2016

China has undergone fast economic growth in the past 30 years, and the quick changing of life and culture triggered a crisis of identity. Large factories producing counterfeits of ‘original’ designs are in large part responsible for China’s economic growth. She researched the historical, political, economic and cultural reasons behind the phenomenon of copying in China. Considering that the design profession is one of creativity, it should not come as a surprise that Chinese designers are sensitive to the subject of copying;

It supposedly conflicts with the creativity of the profession.As such. Chinese designers are facing the fact that a large amount of counterfeits have been produced in China are left questioning their identity. In a mass-production industry, copying is an important method, thus people need intellectual property laws to protect their investment and profits.

Tulip Pyramid, He Jing, 2016

Think for instance aboutthe ongoing legal and cultural conflict between Joyme and IKEA. Or the Chinese acquisition of the Bauhaus collection, in an attempt to transform ‘Made in China’ to ‘Designed in China’. To understand the significance of copying in China, despite any critical connotation that might arise, herself, as a designer.She try to incorporate this reality in her work.

What is identity for He Jing?

To answer these questions, I started with a general question: What is identity? I think that one’s identity cannot be separated from where and how one is raised . I question the notion of identity in the system of capitalism, where one’s identity probably consists of a collection of products.

Thousands of mass products and advertisements are designed to encourage people to purchase the commodities that match many sorts of designed identities. Thus in design, what does ‘Chinese’ mean? Is it a sort of flavor, taste, style or commercial strategy?

Tulip Pyramid, He Jing, 2016

As China grew to be the world’s second-largest economy, counterfeiting became an important subject. In recent decades, products that are manufactured in China are familiar in daily life all over the world. But ‘Made in China’ also means ‘cheap’ and ‘low-quality’. Added to this is a huge amount of products that have been produced in China without the label of ‘Made in China’. And these are considered ‘fakes’.

But how to define ‘fake’? Is copying always a negative word? Can a designer learn from copies and fakes, while still finding the practice somewhat deplorable? She believes facing the confusion of her cultural background is an important step to assess her identity as an individual designer; a design method may come from the careful observation of the chaos.

Therefore, she believes that one’s identity reflects where and how one grew up, and she wants to learn from the phenomenon of copying in China instead of denying it. She aims for a design method inspired by the practice of copying in Chinese culture. In the last Chapter, she describes her own design proposal where she take copying and being copied as a natural process and create an opportunity to copy the project itself. Although the project is not a famous design that will be copied by others. Copying has already taken place inside this design project: A Tulip Pyramid created and transformed by the practice of copying.

Categories
Contemporary

Contemporary | Ye Funa – Nailhenge

Ye Funa was born in Kunming, China in 1986. She graduated with a BFA in Experimental Art from the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing, China . MFA from the Central Saint Martins College of Art, London, UK.

Funa fictional space

Ye’s practice is concerned with the relationship between the realities of everyday life. She is interested in the perceived connection between authority and many areas of social life such as different power structures, ethnic groups. The fictional space of propaganda for the concept of ‘perfection’ in an ideological system, and utopian landscape. Her work is politically charged, subtly engaged in pastiche as a satirizing style of propaganda. 

As the concluding exhibition for the Curated Nail project, “Nailhenge” seemed a little on the somber side. Here were neither the creative manicure sessions of past events, nor the cosplay girls from “Peep Stream”. In addition to older works like “Nail Diamonds Treasure Chest” and “Nail Bank”, Ye Funa showed a recent series entitled Capture the Nail, made using cheap trinkets from small-merchandise wholesale markets, and Nailhenge: A Small Victory, a new short film shot in this gallery-turned-green-canopy-space.

叶甫纳，”甲天下”，展览现场 Ye Funa, “Nailhenge”，installation view

Family Album

The turn from “Family Album” to “Curated Nails” marks Ye’s transition from a research-oriented practice. Based on texts and history to a participatory one drawing from the realities of everyday life. In 2014, Ye Funa founded “Exhibitionist: Curated Nails” on Wechat’s public platform, a curatorial project that allowed fingernails to appropriate the exhibition function of galleries and museums.

By 2016, Ye Funa had collected over 150 submissions. In conjunction with successively promoting the proposals on the public account named “Exhibitionist”. Ye has also collaborated with various institutions for pop-up shows, including Ying Space, Nanjing Arts Institute，MoCA Pavillion, storefronts, among others. Essentially, the motive driving Ye’s implementation of this project comes from the individual’s need for manicure makeovers—she contemplates how to transfer conventional exhibition-making to feature nails. As the project developed, Ye’s interest in nails expanded to the realm of pathology and sociology. The word “exhibitionist” originally indicated a perverse behavior in which someone achieves sexual satisfaction by exposing their genitals. In the context of Ye Funa ’s work, it suggests more a certain compulsion for spontaneous showcasing in public space.

Naihenge sculpture YE FUNA

《巨甲阵- 珍珠贝》，综合材料，Nailhenge, mixed material, 205×105cm，2016

Arranged on transparent display shelves, the Capture the Nail series is made up of nails adorned with rhinestones, puppets, insects, organs, plants, hair, and other plastic materials. On first sight it seems to resemble a mini cult movie theater with a penchant for porn and gore. Although the work seeks to comment on how nails pertain to pathology and sociology. The dazzling array of trinkets is not lacking in feminine accessories such as bows, high heels, and diamonds. This manicure-themed exhibition makes it difficult for viewers to ignore a stereotypical female desire for bodily embellishment. But judging from the vulgar color palette, cheap materials, and crude craftsmanship, the work deliberately rebels against the exquisite refinement sought in popular manicure practices.

Ye Funa A small victory

Paired with an upbeat electronic soundtrack, the short A Small Victory recounts the process of Ye navigating “manicure” culture with a friend. The artist fabricated the ”genesis” of manicure culture, in which “manicure”. A culture intimately intertwined with the lives of women since the beginning of time—seems to have attained a legitimate place. Correspondingly, Ye made ten person-sized nails, taking both Eastern and Western female mythological characters as inspiration for the nail designs. In addition to symbols of Nüwa and the goddess of love in orthodox mythology. Ye also incorporated elements from different subcultures, especially manga culture. For example, the scepter adorned with crowns, hearts, and feathers is reminiscent of the role of Usagi Tsukino from the Japanese Manga series Sailor Moon (“manicure” is the initial step in the Sailor Soldier transformation process—it is as though it can bestow special powers).

When talking about the works of female artists, critics habitually employ .Words like “subversive”, “satire”, “parody”, and “self-amusement” in order to project “rebellious” personalities onto the artists. Although discourse on female artists is not novelty. It still remains a topic for museums, and curators to use to generate controversy.

Female Artist situation

Whenever institutions put up shows featuring female artists, they almost never fail either to emphasize their “particular” identity with phrases like “women’s living conditions and spiritual qualities are the benchmark for measuring the achievements of civilized society”, or to affirm the value of their cultural production with statements such as  “the works of female artists are becoming more and more powerful…etc.” At times, these circumstances result in female artists refraining from commenting on topics related to gender and refusing altogether that which is “female”. In contrast, “Nailhenge” does not shy away from women’s love for makeovers. The beauty inherent in manicure culture encompasses . Not only the sexy and the elegant, but also the weird and the bizarre. The attribution of beauty depends on the individual and what is attractive to them; the desire to look good is but a form of self-amusement.

Categories
Contemporary 人物 当代 艺术家

Contemporary | Zhao Qi: like works

The Chinese art

Artist: Zhao Qi

zhao qi Born in Jin County, Liaoning Province in 1954
He currently works and lives in Beijing

zhao qi would like to call these paintings on small notebooks works. Therefore, this point is emphasized because according to custom. We often call this type of painting “studio”, or shorthand or something like that. What zhao qi don’t understand is, why can’t sketches and sketches be placed in the exhibition halls of art museums such as Chinese paintings, oil paintings and prints?

Zhao Qi work

Outside of zhao qi understanding of painting, I think the work is a kind of narrative and the painter expresses his ideas through the painting. Although these paintings on small books are not “formal” like the works on display, their essence is still something thoughtful.

These paintings are random, sometimes standing, sometimes sitting, sometimes leaning against where. This way, I can see that when I painted. I must have been moved by the image in front of me. Yes, these images are painted in front of the object, it is not an imagination from nothing. ——This is different from other jobs, right?

——All the works are sent with feelings. suddenly I feel wrong to tell this fact. Because some images are also boring when I hold a pen and first draw carelessly. When painting, the picture looks interesting. Painting is indeed a very magical act, we cannot know where the end of the brush is attached.

Contemporary art usually refers to art that has innovated and subverted existing norms in the fields of oil painting, sculpture, and printmaking since China implemented economic reforms in 1979 and opened to the outside world, including photography. Installation.Concept.Performance. Video. Multimedia and other new art forms . The Chinese art circle regards an art exhibition in 1979 as the beginning of Chinese contemporary art history.

Categories
Contemporary

Contemporary | Miao Ying ’s promotional showrooms

In an increasingly digital world. Where facial recognition apps allegedly store our aged portraits and smart devices eavesdrop on our most intimate conversations. A growing number of artists are presenting tech-inspired dystopias in their work. New York and Shanghai-based Miao Ying adds an even more bitter cherry on top of this potential, doom-filled future, with her commentary on drastic governmental Internet censoring, and eventual self-censorship, in her home country of China. “Self-censorship is similar to Stockholm Syndrome,” says the artist.

Miao Ying last decade

However about becoming frenemies with censorship over the last decade, since she graduated from graduate school. “I never read George Orwell’s 1984 because I live in it and it’s pretty dark already.

Miao YiMiao Ying, I haven’t closed google chrome in 3 years
Miao Ying, I haven't closed google chrome in 3 years
Miao Ying, I haven’t closed google chrome in 3 years

Gif works

It’s easy to think censoring is wrong—few would argue with that.But the artist has been practicing ways of working with it. While playfully bending the rules. Miao showed a GIF of a half-loaded image of Chairman Mao as part of her mixed media installation Chinternet . Plus in the group exhibition The New Normal: China, Art, and 2017 at Beijing’s UCCA Center for Contemporary Art. The cultural bureau, during one of their usual trips to institutions to eliminate “threat”. Deemed the work inappropriate because of the clear resemblance of the former leader’s forehead. The artist’s solution was to raise the image’s pixilation to such a degree of unclarity that she was able to exhibit the work. Which was about China’s economy slowly getting stuck in a manner similar to a buffering image.

Miao Ying, Chinternet Plus (detail), 2016. Courtesy the artist
Miao Ying, Chinternet Plus (detail), 2016. Courtesy the artist

Miao’s mixed media installations—or promotional showrooms, as she calls them—bring her web art pieces into the gallery space, but exist almost secondary to her work in the digital realm. For Miao, her work strictly “resides online” and physical installations . She has started showing at museums result from an outside demand to prompt the audience to go to the Internet. “The work always starts with a digital core, which relates to a communist ideology. Starting with an abstract vision and adding up to build an idea.” 

Miao Ying, data
Miao Ying, data

Miao Ying Grey Area

“There has always been a grey area to play with; however, that area is constantly getting narrower,” explains the artist. Who believes the current digital-political landscape has reached new realms of horror. With an in-progress credit system to collect personal data, similar to the purchase-based credit system of online shopping platform Taobao. Which grants visa-free access to Canada or Singapore for those holding the desired score. A pilot programme is currently being tested on smaller cities. The new deductive system gives each citizen 1,000 points, which drop based on their online and real-life presence. Monitored through governing web companies and people observing and noting others’ public behaviours. “The plan is to have each Chinese citizen scored by 2020.” says Miao, adding that a low score will limit travel and access to certain benefits.

Miao Ying, Happily Contained (detail), 2018. Courtesy the artist
Miao Ying, Happily Contained (detail), 2018. Courtesy the artist

Categories
Contemporary 艺术家

Contemporary | Aaajiao – deep simulator

Who is Aaajiao

Aaajiao is the online handle for Xu Wenkai. Who coined the name in the years he downloaded mp3s from Soundseek and chatroom users. His username chromatic_corner to ‘A Jiao’ (literally in Chinese: corner).

Aaajiao, Deep Simulator, at Tabula Rasa Gallery in London

Aaajiao Deep Simulator

That sense of double play, in which a seemingly straightforward work is laid bare as a labyrinthine critique that feels at once accessible and obscure, comes through, also, in the artist’s latest exhibition, Deep Simulator, at Tabula Rasa Gallery in London (4 June–31 July 2021). The work was first shown in the project room of Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea in 2020, marking the artist’s first exhibition at an Italian institution.

Aaajiao, Deep Simulator, at the project room of Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, 2020

In a room set up with a gaming station and standalone. Surreal objects evocative of tree branches rendered by digital algorithm. Aaajiao’s metagame Deep Simulator invites the viewer to partake in a space exploration at once both real and virtual.

Aaajiao, Deep Simulator, 2020

The prime engine

Deep Simulator sees computational power as the prime engine that generates the state of our world. The six possible states of Bardo—a term originated from Buddhism that describes the intermediate state between death and rebirth—can be retrieved by the player via six levels of computational power. “Deep Wanderer,” defined as the protagonist of the metagame, is an amalgamated persona consisting of the viewer of the exhibition, the player at the game station, and the wanderer in the metaphorical journey within the simulation. Upon seeing and being the “Deep Wanderer”, individuals such as us come closer to understanding the truth of our existence.  

Aaajiao, Deep Simulator, 2020

Human Identity

As the artist’s continuous reflection on the evolution of human identity along the transformative power of the Internet sphere, the forming of The Player in Deep Simulation is a transmutative process carried out by the artist over the years. It passes through the figure of The User presented on the artist’s solo exhibition User, Love, High-frequency Trading in 2017, and The Bot as an information crawler for the project bot in 2018. The spectator’s ability to see the player playing while awaiting his or her own turn opens up a path to observe an “other” him- or herself, and underlines the controversial notion of the real in the world of new technologies, the Internet and the circulation of digital data. 

Aaajiao, Deep Simulator, 2020

It is worth noting that Deep Simulator was specially conceived for the project room of Castello di Rivoli in 2020. Making aaajiao the first Chinese artist to exhibit at an Italian institution. Due to the pandemic, only domestic visitors in Italy were allowed. We hope that through presenting the work for a second time at our London space, the work will be able to reach a broader audience.

source

https://ocula.com/magazine/conversations/aaajiao-nft-blockchain-future/

http://gallerytabularasa.com/exhibitions/page.php?id=31aaajiao-deepsimulator

https://eventstructure.com/

Categories
Contemporary 当代 艺术家

Contemporary丨Chen Qiang: Thoughts spanning

Thoughts spanning

chen qiang sketch

Life is a general summary

Life is a general summary of human beings living in nature and from the past to the present to the future, emphasizing practical effectiveness on the issue of survival. It is precisely because of this practicality that it rejects the essence of art, because the thoughts of art is ineffective in the practicality of life.

The effectiveness of life has established a common sense of normality for us, so that our thoughts and actions are within this clear range of normal consciousness. Practicality and effectiveness are brought into full play in this range. However, the essence of art does not belong to this range.

This kind of normality consciousness will find that we have to give up those normal consciousnesses in the process of fully pursuing ambitious, practical and intelligent goals.

Abandoning the thoughts of normalcy is the beginning of discovering art and also the beginning of artistic creation.
In fact, art is the art of perception.

The original intention of art

The original intention of art is to allow perception to regain new perception. It is the perception that is difficult to perceive. It is about the perception method, about the perception outside the existing perspective, about the perception of small accidents in the existing experience, and it emphasizes the methodology.

thoughts chen qiang
chen qiang experimental

There are many reasons that hinder our in-depth creation, one of the main ones is too many ideas, too selfish, and too arbitrary.

Art is not a microphone and foil of ideas. Art will shine only when ideas serve art.
It is not that art needs to match ideas, but ideas need to match art.

Don’t expect to put your own ideas into others’ heads through art. Because art is not a tool, let alone a conspiracy. Ideas can only become the background, not the protagonist.

chen Qiang sketch Thoughts

Why do we put a horizontal line across the screen, our eyes will immediately show the illusion of the horizon? Is this the effect of gravity on us? Or is our genes conspiring with gravity?

Gravity is the original force on the earth and is closely related to the birth of life. The horizon is a symbol of gravity.

Gravity determines our perception. We perceive the world under the control of gravity, and we perceive the world in the formula of gene propagation and survival.

Our perception is a convenient program edited by genes in order to survive and spread genes. Everything starts step by step, and we are secretly defined as a carrier of communication.

However, in the long journey of human development, due to the residual increment of perception .

The birth of art

The birth of art has gradually become an exception thoughts. It is a bit like a mutation in gene transfer. It can become more and more free from gravitational manipulation.

Survival needs, let yourself become useless for survival, let yourself be yourself. When the purpose of art is art. Art has completed its ignorance of gravity and betrayal of genes.

Presenting the unknown perception is like presenting art. From a certain angle, let yourself be in a kind of uncertainty from time to time, is it not a kind of freedom?
This is the question I thought about in the process of creating this batch of works.

Categories
Contemporary 当代 艺术家

Contemporary | Su Xinping: Art, spend my life

Artist: Su Xinping
Born in Jining City, Inner Mongolia in 1960
Deputy Dean of the Central Academy of Fine Arts
Professor, PhD supervisor

Su XinPing Perspective

Su Xin ping was born in Jining, central Inner Mongolia, and now Ulan Qab City. Where the population was only about 30,000 in the 1960s. From today’s perspective, it can only be regarded as a small town, an adobe house, and a few buildings.

In January 1977, I enlisted in the army. The army stipulates that recruits must train in the company for one year, and can only do painting-related work in the second year.

One day after living in the company for half a year, when I was studying to read the newspaper in the evening. I accidentally saw the news about the admissions of the People’s Liberation Army Art Academy . In the newspaper, which caught my attention.

Su xingping Military art

su xin ping decided to apply for the military arts exam, so I went to the leader of the army to talk about my thoughts. I didn’t expect to get the answer that ordinary soldiers can’t apply for the exam. This kind of answer can hardly hit me. At that time, there was only one way for soldiers to enter university, and that was to retire.

Chinese works

After I was discharged from the army, I went to work at Jining City Cultural Center, and I was able to devote all my energy to review. In May, when it was the day of college admissions and registration.

The only professional schools I could choose were the Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts and the Department of Fine Arts of Inner Mongolia Normal University.

Inner Mongolia belonged to In the North China region, national regulations did not allow cross-regional examinations at that time.

As for why I chose printmaking artist as a major, I think it may be a problem of understanding, because I have painted a lot of black and white illustrations in the army. I think black and white painting is just a printmaking.

Oversea life

I was admitted to the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 1986. At that time, the academic atmosphere of the Academy of Fine Arts was unparalleled. You can see some clues only from my classmates and colleagues. When I was in school. Yin Jinan and I lived in a dormitory.

However, the selection and conversion process of my major did not go smoothly. My master’s research direction was woodcut.

When I saw the last class of classmates painting stone plates, I was still attracted. For the first time.I saw that it can Painting, and can print very subtle changes. I wanted to try it out, so I secretly borrowed a slate from him.

At the end of the teaching inspection. the teacher in the department saw the lithograph I painted and asked who made it. I was a little nervous about being criticized.

The department leader thought that I was more suitable for professional development in lithograph. and the department decided to transfer me to study at lithograph studio.

Su XinPing Gao ming lu

At the end of 1988, Gao Minglu, the curator of the “Chinese Modern Art Exhibition”, came to the Academy of Fine Arts to select works. When he saw my lithographs. he chose two works and invited me to participate in the exhibition.

Today, it seems that the modern art exhibition is a landmark exhibition in the history of contemporary Chinese art. But su xin ping did not have this awareness at all at the beginning. and even before the opening of the exhibition. Su xin ping went back to my hometown in Inner Mongolia to visit relatives.

Only later did I hear about the grand occasion of the exhibition, and learned that on the opening day of the National Art Museum of China. Almost all participating artists were present. The shooting, the sale of shrimps, the washing of feet, and the incubation of eggs. shocked a series of contemporary art acts that challenge ideology.

Categories
Contemporary 艺术家

Contemporary|Kang Jianfei: reconcile with myself

reconcile with myself

When kang Jian fei was young, kang Jian feiwas looking forward to the New Year. When kang Jian fei grew up, kang Jian fei was really afraid of the New Year. If summarize the reasons for the fear, there will be more. The most core thing think is because of the fear of time. Generally speaking, a pessimist, and there are so many things kang Jian fei can’t figure out. The world in my mind is different. kang Jian fei like wine, and kang Jian Fei like to drink by myself. When kang Jian fei am drunk, kang Jian fei can see the imaginary world more clearly. That is the other me, maybe that is the real me. I’m more and more afraid of drinking with others, afraid that kang Jian fei can’t control my drunk self and hurt others. kang Jian fei always want to gain insight into the secrets of the world, never believe in established rules, and always feel that there is an invisible line connecting the world.

forward to the New Year

When I was young, I was looking forward to the New Year. When I grew up, I was really afraid of the New Year. If I summarize the reasons for the fear, there will be more. The most core thing I think is because of the fear of time. Generally speaking, I am a pessimist, and there are so many things I can’t figure out. The world in my mind is different. I like wine, and I like to drink by myself. When I am drunk, I can see the imaginary world more clearly. That is the other me, maybe that is the real me. I’m more and more afraid of drinking with others, afraid that I can’t control my drunk self and hurt others. always want to gain insight into the secrets of the world, never believe in established rules, and always feel that there is an invisible line connecting the world.

A child

When was a child, there were not many words from teachers who could remember when was in school. One sentence was said by the head teacher. have to break the casserole and ask to the end, so that have adhered to this principle for many years. If you are facing a math problem, it must be right, but it doesn’t seem to be a good way to face life and society. Seeking truth is an attitude, and the method of seeking truth is self-continuous thinking and practice, but don’t touch society with a truth-seeking attitude. It seems too hypocritical. Some problems will not be solved until many years later. Otherwise, let it go, let it go!reconcile with myself.

If life is a stage

If life is a stage, then each of us must become a certain role. When you are watched, you are an actor, and acting is almost your destiny. There is no permanent banquet in the world, and there is no drama that can be performed endlessly. Before time, everything is a temporary. I believe reconcile with myself in determinism and the alternate causality, just like the sun rising east Xiluo is purely natural.

But all people will pursue the meaning of life, especially these sentimental and awkward artists who draw pictures for meaning, put urinals in art museums for meaning, and even peeing is also in pursuit of meaning. Perhaps the most meaningless part for others is the ultimate meaning pursued by the artist. In the face of time, the meaning will be dispelled, will gradually change, and will be reborn into a new meaning. Freud divided me into id, ego, and superego, but whether it is desire, consciousness, or morality, it still revolves around “I”, who am I? Who is me again?

believe in the laws of the world, reconcile with myself,and that the greatest joy in life is inner peace. Therefore, at the end of this year, I choose to reconcile with myself.

Categories
Contemporary 当代 艺术家

Contemporary | Zhang Hui likes Beijing

Dazzling sun

Artist: Zhang Hui

Born in Beijing in 1968

Zhang Hui Graduated from the Mural Painting Department of Central Academy of Fine Arts in 1991
2005 Master of Arts and Design, Minneapolis College of Art and Design
Currently works and lives in Beijing

walk in the surrounding

Living in Beijing, Zhang Hui like to walk in the surrounding mountains. Zhang Hui usually leave at 8 or 9 in the morning, sometimes with a couple of friends, sometimes by myself, driving for one and a half to two hours, and there are some routes around 100 kilometers away.

If it is a four- to five-hour route, Zhang Hui will bring something to eat, such as a steamed bun or a biscuits or bean buns, and sometimes a boiled egg. Generally, there is no salted duck egg, which is salty and oily, which is inconvenient. Be sure to bring something sweet, such as a few pieces of candy, two snacks, or two energy bars.

Bring a 500ml bottle of water on cold days, two bottles on hot days, and three bottles in July and August. There are many hills with an altitude of about one kilometer in Beijing, and the general parking place is about 500 meters.

There are only three mountains of two kilometers, Dongling Mountain 2,303 meters, Haituo Mountain 2,241 meters, and Wuling Mountain 2,118 meters. Outdoor hiking has sunshine, sufficient oxygen, and the atmosphere of trees, flowers, and mountains. It is a process of challenging one’s own limits and relaxing and happy.

In the book “What Do I Talk About When I Talk about Running,” Haruki Murakami describes his daily life, running in the sun, eating grilled fish, drinking beer, writing, and listening to music.

It’s a beautiful day. Zhang Hui also like the ending part of his “Norwegian Forest.” Reiko made a hot pot for Watanabe, and they sang while talking about the guitar. They held a “real” funeral for Naoko and played 51 songs in a row. The soul of Super Naoko is also redeeming himself. After that, they “hugged each other as a matter of course” and then made love.

like Bach’s music

Zhang Hui like Bach’s music, religious sense and divinity. Especially his fugue, the chase and escape of notes entangled and flowed. Zhang Hui like Indian traditional music, which is continuous and coming in a steady stream. Like jazz. Like Mahler, especially his ninth and tenth symphony, eternal, beyond death, suffocating.

Schopenhauer said that we are all slaves of our own will, trapped in the desire for food, sex, money, and control. Art is a possible way to save us from the distorted, boring and painful reality. Art can give us. Transcendence, it has such an energy to help us achieve spiritual escape.

Over the years, Zhang Hui have painted several different series: cities, trees and branches, people, colored stones, clouds, grids. There are many journeys and thoughts behind these paintings. Now it is difficult for me to state clearly the background of these thoughts.