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.
Chinese artist Yuan Yuan is known on the international art scene thanks to his distinctive paintings, focused on architectural subjects and executed with impeccable technique. They convey a unique atmosphere, that is materialized in the poetic of memory.
Confessionary II, 2013, oil on linen
Zheijang hometown
Yuan Yuan born in 1973 in Zhejiang province and studied in the Oil Painting Department of the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou. Where he gained a graduation in Fine Arts in 1996 and a Master in Fine Arts in 2008. When YuanYuan was studying there, while Chinese society was still very conservative. The Academy was “like a sunroof, always open for us” . And he benefited from a library well stocked with foreign periodicals. Currently lives and works in Hangzhou and Berlin.
His work is heavily influenced by traditional Chinese painting, which she studied when he was a secondary school student. Also, the painter was inspirited by Western artist such as Richard Long (Land Art) and Felix Gonzalez-Torres (Conceptual Art).
Breakfast, 2013, oil on canvas.
YuanYuan subjects are mainly interiors and these are based on real places, with some imaginary elements added. Sometimes he also manipulates architectural details and as a result the scenes . He depicts seem to lie somewhere between reality and illusion.
All Yuan Yuan’s paintings share a sense of abandonment, offering just a glimpse of their former glory.
The artist said
“Ruins give us a sense of security, they are living spaces without .A sense of pressure so you can do whatever you want. Abandoned places are also public, meaning that you may enter and visit. This is similar to the process of a viewer who is looking at an artwork. I am trying my best to identify the residual traces left behind – not so much what the place has now.But rather what this place used to be for a long time, which no one can take away and cannot be seen. “
YuanYuan, A Home for Home, 2012, oil on canvas
YuanYuan, Fairy Dream Liner 3, 2008, oil on canvas
Paintings composition are highly structured and orderly, dictated by the geometric details of the architecture depicted. what sets Yuan Yuan’s paintings is the incredible detail with which he describes every individual surface within the composition. In particular, She is fascinated by mosaics and patterns of tiles, whether on floors, walls, or lining pools and showers.
He is able to play with an infinite variety of hues within the same color scheme to produce a stunning effect. The atmosphere often feels humid in his paintings, with water in pools or dripping from .the ceiling or decaying walls, and the mood is melancholy. In order to achieve the effect of wet surfaces, he applies several layers of diluted pigment. A classical Chinese painting technique.
Yuan Yuan, Meteoric Water, 2011, acrylic on canvas
Yuan Yuan, Swimming Pool II, 2010, oil on canvas
At first glance, Yuan Yuan’s paintings seem devoid of any human presence. This is not quite true. She wants to represent people by depicting traces of human activity, which heighten our curiosity.
Thus, She also conveys a sense of passing time, of transition and history.
Zhou Jun is a contemporary conceptual chinese photographer. He was born in Nanjing Province in 1965 and graduated from Nanjing Normal University in 1990.
His work revolves around construction sites and the relationship between urbanization and the preservation of ancient cultural inheritance.
Zhou Jun
Zhou Jun’s technique
The artist is best known for his series – Scaffoldings; Bird’s Nest project; The Red and the Black – featuring Chinese cities in black and white with overlays of red streamers wrapped around under-construction buildings. Zhou Jun uses large format film cameras to produce negatives, which are scanned, digitally manipulated and printed to produce large unframed photographic works. Built environment is the subject of Zhou’s work in an analysis of China’s rapid and sometimes brutal redevelopment. Created since 1992, his photographs mainly treat the conflicting relationships between Chinese traditional architecture and contemporary buildings while continuously challenging the symbolic nature of the red color.
9th 2007, 2007, Digital C – print, 120 x 190 cm/180 x 286 cm
Expo 2010 Shanghai – China Pavillion, 2009, Digital C – print, 120 x 150 cm/220 x 180 cm
Building progress
The contradictions that are presented when trying to preserve the past in a time of China’s unprecedented economic growth underpin the work of Zhou Jun. During the last thirty years the most striking feature of China’s re-development has been its city construction. Demolition of whole villages to make way for high-rise development is a regular occurrence. The lead up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics saw massive building works and although it transformed Beijing into a modern city entire neighborhoods were ‘moved on’ in the name of progress.
Bird’s Nest No. 2, 2006, Digital C – print, 50 x 60 cm/120 x 150 cm
Zhou Jun’s work embodies a quality of yearning for the past to some extent and this is seen in his photographs of historic buildings from Beijing. He is acutely aware of the expansion of Chinese cities and the loss of traditional architecture. It is the loss of Chinese culture in the pursuit of globalisation.
Phoenix Ancient City, 2011, Digital C – print, 120 x 150 cm/180 x 220 cm
Seeing red
The color red has significance in Chinese cultural memory as it is used for ceremonial occasions such as weddings but it also represents revolutionary communist ideology. It is a reminder of the turmoil of the recent past. Because of this, the wide variety of perspectives of each person means completely different feelings and reactions are aroused by the color red. The partnership between the black and white photographs and the red sections of scaffolding allows the audience to produce their own meanings.
“Hanging Red”, 2009, 120 x 150 cm, Archival Inkjet Print on Fine Art Paper
A word from the author
“The three decades of development China is experiencing – building to a crescendo with the Olympics – are unparalleled in history. The colour red, which I use to highlight specific parts of the photograph, can elicit different responses in people from different countries or cultures – at times, it can even have opposite meanings for people. I want my work to be interpreted differently by people depending on their response to the symbolic meaning of red. In this sense, the work has the potential to reveal international perspectives to common subject matter.”
Zhou Jun also creates sculptural works using porcelain and other materials, always mantaining his distinctive style and his conceptual structure.
A “wounded” porcelain vase, surrounded by scaffoldings
Li Xiaofeng is a Chinese sculptor and fashion designer, born in 1965 in Hubei. His unique work consists in wearable porcelain clothes.
He graduated at the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA)’s Mural Department, and began his activity as a muralist. Then he began specializing in sculpture in order to explore new concepts and expressive forms to apply to the Chinese contemporary artistic scene.
Li Xiaofeng
His sculpture-clothing project is truly original, both for the selected material and the idea of wearable “pieces of armor” that recall Chinese traditional works.
Li Xiaofeng’s creative process
Li Xiaofeng researches and collects fragments of ancient Chinese porcelain recovered from archaeological excavations, dating back to the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties: he models and polishes them and punctures them, then sews them together on a leather undergarment through a silver thread, creating a “porcelain fabric”. His meticulous work is a bridge between past and present and a sharp reflection on the concept of culture.
These dresses are fully wearable
Li’s Rearranged landscapes
“Chinese culture” is the basic breakthrough point in Li’s works: he feels a sense of mission for its study and he channels it all in what he calls “Post Orientalism”. Landscape was always a major theme in his large number of paintings created in the past but, instead of simply copying like some other contemporary artists, he had always the urge to rearrange it, in a dynamic dialogue with history.
This extract explains the reason why Li Xiaofeng’s calls his porcelain clothes “rearranged landscapes”:
“Since the time when it was the Mongol Yuan capital Khanbalik to the present day, Beijing has initiated its largest excavation projects of all time and, like a blue snake that has been hibernating for a millennium, the city is now stirring and shedding its old skin. It greedily emerges through the towering buildings, twisting free from the historical sediment of its ancient civilization. Blue-and-white porcelain shards that represent this civilization are unearthed in large quantities at the same time. These blue shards, bathed in the sunny skies of socialism and caressed by the contemporary cool breezes blowing from the west throughout the capital, assume a bewildering array of postures as fashion items entering the new century!
Xi Liaofeng at work
Among his works are women’s dresses, t-shirts and men’s jackets. His first piece in wearable porcelain fragments was “Beijing Memories”, a Mao suit.
MIlitary uniform
Lacoste’s porcelain shirt Li XiaoFeng
In 2010 the world-renowned brand Lacoste commissioned Li Xiaofeng a porcelain polo shirt for men and women for the Holiday Collector series. Unfortunately, a problem occurred: the PRC prohibits the export of ancient artifacts, including old porcelain shards.
Despite that, the artist did not give up and realized the porcelain himself, with the crocodile’s logo attached, and tore it apart only to recompose it into a Polo shirt, one of the most expensive and exclusive items ever sold by Lacoste.
Lacoste’s porcelain shirt-sculpture
The artist also released a limited edition polo shirt, choosing blue and white fragments depicting the lotus flower and drawings of newborns from the Kangxi period and the Qing dynasty. The lotus flower represents rebirth and purity while newborns represent fertility. In that period the mortality rate among children was high and this type of decoration was in great demand in the hope of being a blessing for children.
“Porcelain shards” polo shirt
Li Xiaofeng’s main expositions
2019
Dreaming of Crafts of the Future: Mongyudowon Unfolds, 11th Cheongju Craft Biennale 2019, Culture Factory C, Cheongju
2018
Cracked – Porcelain, Red Gate Gallery
2D vs 3D, Red Gate Gallery
798, We Are Back, Red Gate Gallery
2017
Red Gate on the Move, Red Gate Gallery
Contemporary Dialogues Between Fashion and Art, Zhu Zhong Art Museum
The Silk Road and Celestial Clothes, Taimiao Art Museum
Fusion – The International Exhibition of Contemporary Ceramic Art, Art Museum of Nanjing University of the Arts, Nanjing
2016
Red Gate: The Next 25 Years, Red Gate Gallery
2015
China: Through the Looking Glass，The Metropolitan Museum of Art, USA
2014
5th Tanwan Ceramics Biennale, Taipei County Yingge Ceramics Museum, Tanwan
ST. Start International exhibition of the Chinese Contemporary Ceramic Art, Today Art Museum, Beijing
2013
7th Gyeonggi International Ceramic Biennale 2013 Korea, Icheon CeraMIX Creative Center, Korea
2011
Ming to Nirvana, Red Gate Gallery
2010
Head On, Red Gate Gallery
Width Contemporary Art Exhibition, Museum of Contemporary Art, Beijing
ZHU YANING: My name is Zhu Yaning and I am 23 years old. I’m currently studying sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence, and graduated on September of this year.
ART BAIGUAN: When did you start to learn and get in touch with art? Which was the original intention of learning art?
ZHU YANING: When I was young, I had a really interesting art class and slowly I became more and more interested. In high school, I studied at the CAFA , where I studied Western traditional art, with its oil paintings. At the same time, I was also learning the fundamental aspects of history of art.
ART BAIGUAN: What made you choose contemporary art instead of traditional art? In your opinion, traditional art has an impact of contemporary art?
ZHU YANING: I know how to understand contemporary art from the traditional art thanks to the opportunity I had of studying abroad. It’s common opinion thinking that I should be at home because of my young age. Teachers are basically relatively traditional so after going abroad. I began to get in touch with some new things, and learned the contemporary art of the 20th century and the development of Western avant-garde art.
Materials and themes are not really important aspects, artists’ point is completely beyond the art range I once understood. In the beginning, it was actually very overwhelming. Because there was always something I didn’t know about that I should have tried understanding harder. But than if you leave the past and choose new things.you will eventually find a path that suits you better. Although there are still many confusions, it is indeed more than just going abroad.
In my opinion Chinese students abroad feel themselves bound between their tradition and the culture they are in contact with. I later discovered that the concepts and knowledge of the traditional art that I have learned have already penetrated into my own thoughts.and will be reflected whenever I do what I do. But it is a kind of wealth for me. The most important thing is a relatively peaceful attitude to get in touch with new things. In this way, your artistic concept will become more diversified, which means more possibilities for creation.
Zhu Yaning
In fact, I don’t have the ability to define objectively and undergroundly contemporary art and traditional art, Some people may think that some avant-garde art of the last century can represent contemporary art. However, for some contemporary art practitioners they have already become a thing of the past. They are already tradition. In the second half of the last century, there was a conceptual artist who wrote a thesis on the topic of philosophy as art. This is enough to prove that the definition of art in the last century has changed dramatically.
Zhu Yaning’s ArtWork
ART BAIGUAN As far as I know, you used to study sculpture. Why did you choose to do installation art?
ZHU YANING: Because the content we are studying is within the scope of visual art. In which we distinguish the direction of sculpture, oil painting, printmaking and the like. But to put it bluntly, we have chosen a way, like a tool or a category. it’s not a transformation, because in the end all forms are meant to express what you want to express. Then the device is a language that I think is relatively comprehensive, it can create more possibilities. It gives you more possibilities and more ways to express what you want to behave,
Zhu Yaning’s Sculpture
ART BAIGUAN: What is your work expressing? How do you think about material choices?
ZHU YANING I just want to give the audience a feeling A comparison and a discussion about time. Time, such a serious thing, is gentle.I tried to make people feeling the passing of time the more delicate i could. This is what I want to do, but whether the expression is sufficient or not is still open to question. In fact, because I am also a young and new artist, I am not as comprehensive as the mature artists. I think materials serve to the expression, the choice is because it is suitable, there is no deep reason. The final product can only be said to be within the scope of my ability to express the content in the best way possible.
ART BAIGUAN: Which is the work you are more satisfied with?
ZHU YANING: My favorite work is the third one, made with an italian girl, Fiamma. This work is my first contact with the image, and through this work I understood that cooperation is a very important thing. Before this experience I used to think that artists were independent individuals. or that everyone has their own independent ideas,so that it is difficult to integrate with other artists. But unexpectly, in this work, we had a very good cooperation, so I am really satisfied.
ART BAIGUAN: What do you think about installation art, new media art and the future development trend?
ZHU YANING: Installations and new media will become mainstream, and any of these devices that serve the things of life will ultimately serve art. Since the art has broken every boundaries, we have been free to use any form and medium. I think AR technology and 3D modeling have been used a lot until now but both will be used more in the future.
This is very good, we don’t have to stay in the past, we need just to accept it, because it’s not that you use new things to abandon some of the cultural heritage of the past, so I think it is creating more possibilities, and at the same time the viewer also has a better experience, and it is still a positive thing.
Zhu Yaning’s ArtWork
ART BAIGUAN: Have you ever encountered difficulties in your creation?
ZHU YANING: The most difficult problems are still some real problems. For example, what kind of materials, venues, and equipment are allowed to be made and used but most important: the maturity of creation.
The difficulty I have encountered now is that my creation is not mature enough and my position is not strong enough.
Zhu Yaning’s ArtWork
ART BAIGUAN: Can you express your own creed or thought? Do you have somthing to suggest to younger generation who are still groping on the art road?
ZHU YANING: The most fundamental suggestion is simple: it is sincerity. There are many problems and as long as we insist on sincerity, we will be able to solve them. Sometimes we fall into self-doubt, we don’t trust anyone or we do not have confidence in what we do. But we can understandd whether we are doing this in good faith, as long as you are doing is in good faith all the things you do have value.
I got two advices for the young generation: the first is to look at the individual’s orientation, and the second is to maintain interest. If you are not interested in something you do not have to learn it. It doesn’t make sense and wastes time. Because many of the students I met in the art think, “Ah, this subject is just like this, it doesn’t mean anything,” because they didn’t feel the meaning of it sincerely.
Zhu Yaning’s ArtWork
When I first saw her work, it gave me a feeling of calmness and quietness. I was full of thinking about time and life. I thought she should be a quiet and mature girl. I can’t help but feeling that she is really a cute little girl. She has the characteristics of not following the trend and the ones of being alone and not alone at the same time.
Isn’t this the quality and attitude that the new young artists?
Pan xi is a Chinese artist born in Wenzhou, China, in November 1971. Since childhood, has developed a strong artistic and aesthetic sense because, every week, with her sister, she went to the art institute directed by her father to visit the workshops of the artists at work.
She is so passionate about drawing and painting, she starts taking lessons at the age of ten, from an artist friend of her father.
She began her fine arts studies, after finishing high school, in 1989 at the National Academy of Fine arts in Hangzhou, China, and a year later she received a scholarship and moved to the Academy of Fine Arts in Moscow where he earned a Master in Fine Art.
Lunch break
She is so passionate about drawing and painting, she starts taking lessons at the age of ten, from an artist friend of her father.
She began her fine arts studies, after finishing high school, in 1989 at the National Academy of Fine arts in Hangzhou, China, and a year later she received a scholarship and moved to the Academy of Fine Arts in Moscow where he earned a Master in Fine Art.
Pan Xi 2
In 1999 he obtained a master's degree in oil painting and with the work "Seven Beauties" he won the gold medal of the University.
Since then he has lived in Europe, between Germany, Austria, Holland and France, and in the United States working as a professional artist.
He currently lives in Hangzhou, China, where he opens his personal studios on the Jade Mountain Emperor's Hill on the outskirts.
In 1999 he obtained a master's degree in oil painting and with the work "Seven Beauties" he won the gold medal of the University.
Seven Beauty
Mother and son
From her works shines through the modernity and power of the early twentieth century artists such as Klimt, especially for the use of colors, Modigliani, as regards the idea of dreams and reality that floats in an unreal time, and Schiele in reference to the yield of the bodies and the positions they assume.
Paris in the spring
Although her works are very twentieth-century they maintain a very powerful bond with the ancient Chinese art that makes the works are fascinating, overwhelming but at the same time extremely delicate and poetic.
Siesta
In her works the female subject is undoubtedly predominant. The women of are rendered in all their femininity and sensuality, dormant and dreamy but at the same time so determined and sure to be able to show their body with total ease, seducing the viewer and taking him to another dimension where everything is always immobile and eternal.
spring
Exhibitions: 2003 Veronica, Gallery “de Arte”, Nantes, France 2005 Girl in a Black dress, Gallery “de Arte”, Nantes, France 2008 Body temperature present, Gallery Zhongdao, Suzhou, China 2009 Mother and Child, Gallery “de Arte”, Nantes, France 2010 Carmine, Art scene Warehouse 2011 In my secret garden, M Art Center, Shanghai, China
