Tag: Contemporary art

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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

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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.

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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

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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/

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Contemporary 当代

Contemporary | Yuan Yuan – Architectural paintings

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. 

Yuan Yuan, Confessionary II, 2013, oil on linen
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).  

Yuan Yuan, Breakfast, 2013, oil on canvas.
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. “

Yuan Yuan, A Home for Home, 2012, oil on canvas
YuanYuan, A Home for Home, 2012, oil on canvas
Yuan Yuan, Fairy Dream Liner 3, 2008, 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, Meteoric Water, 2011, acrylic on canvas
Yuan Yuan, Swimming Pool II, 2010, oil 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. 

Yuan Yuan, Mirror, 2011, oil on canvas
Mirror, 2011, oil on canvas

For more Chinese art: Abgstage01. 

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Contemporary

Contemporary | Lin Yilin through performance

Biography

Born in Guangzhou in 1964, Guangdong Province, China, Lin Yilin studied sculpture at the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, graduating in 1987. Lin Yilin through performance found his way to think about present.

His poetics are expressed through urban interventions and site specific performances. It draws on China’s socio-economic conditions, political landscape and cultural experiences; reinvents the relationships between communities and environments in a globalized context.

Lin Yilin through performance uses his experiences as an immigrant to the United States as a starting point for many of his works.

Lin Yilin during a performance

Safely Manuevering across Linhe Road

Lin became known for his installations made with stackable bricks inserted in an urban context, thanks also to his involvement in the Big Tail Elephant Working Group, which founded in 1990 was fundamental for a reflection on the state of China’s urban development. Lin’s best-known work is in fact “Safely Manuevering across Linhe Road” (1995), where the artist moved a pile of bricks across a main road in Guangzhou for ninety minutes. He built a brick wall on the side of the road and then removed it row by row and reassembled it in the middle of the street. Repeating the same gesture, he brought the wall across the street. This performance turned a stable wall into a moving wall and also stopped heavy traffic.

safely manuering
Lin Yilin performing “Safely Maneuvering across Line Road”

Symbolically, the brick for Lin is linked to architectural construction and destruction, it also indicates urbanization and social transformation. The artist intervened on a public site with his body and represented the rapid urbanization which we easily forget despite being very evident.

For other contemporary artists: Contemporary

From:

Apersonaldiary

Guggenheim

Artsy

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Contemporary 当代

Contemporary | Wang Ruilin – “Dreams”

Surreal animal sculptures by Wang Ruilin 

In the serie titled “Dreams”, Chinese sculptor Wang Ruilin creates surreal animals with a particular  features: on their backs – and sometimes on their antlers – these creatures carry monumental elements of nature like lakes and mountain cliffs. It’s like a modern animal-version of Noah’s Arc without people.  

“Dreams Ark1”, Wang Ruilin
“Dreams Ark1”, Wang Ruilin
“Dreams Floating1”, Wang Ruilin
“Dreams Floating1”, Wang Ruilin

Wang Ruilin is a talented Chinese sculptor, born in 1985 in Anshan, in province of Liaoning. He graduated at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing in 2005 and  actually lives and works in the same city. 

Rui Sculpture Life

His sculptures are heavily influenced by traditional Chinese art and mythology. Indeed, his life changed at the age of four or five, when he encountered . a painting of a horse by the artist Xu Beihong (1895-1953). A traditional Chinese painter, primarily known for his ink paintings of horses and birds. Ruilin became obsessed with these vigorous animal and has ever since identified with it.

Horses became one of the main characters of Ruilin’s works, resulting in the series “Horse. Play”, where pours the lively power of the animal in different static postures, creating significant tensions in the sculptures. 

“Horse. Play”, Wang Ruilin
“Horse. Play”, Wang Ruilin
“Dreams Horse”, Wang Ruilin
“Dreams Horse”, Wang Ruilin

“Dreams” series are almost life-sized copped sculptures .And the artist describes their creative process as digging deep into his heart and excavating works that originally exist from various experiences.

About his works, Ruilin says:

“Pursuit of Dreamscomes from my imagination, which is the balance between nature and abnormal state. Animals in Pursuit of Dreams may not be lifelike for I wish to inject different spiritualities and. spirits of the east and remind people to focus and admire on . other individuals who are the same or even more beautiful besides themselves only. Pursuit of Dreams-ark is the work I was inspired in the moment of 2012 . when people were concerning on how to be saved and I make ark to save not only rivers and mountains of human. In the space of impermanent compounds, what we pursue may not exist really and we can only feel the value and force. of life when the doom is set. Just as the big fish that I compare to ark, it carries mountains and rivers with life and . observes the world with the soul”

“Dreams Ark2”, Wang Ruilin
“Dreams Ark2”, Wang Ruilin
Wang Ruilin working on “Horse. Play
Ruilin working on “Horse. Play”

Eastern-classical art also influenced Ruilin use of color.In particular he loves Chinese flower paintings . for their rich, bright and cool colors. For the artist eyes they seem deep, pure and full of profoundness and uniqueness. 

The series “Dreams” was protagonist of ART Beijing in 2014.  

“Dreams Yak”, Wang Ruilin
“Dreams Yak”, Wang Ruilin
“Dreams Floating2”, Wang Ruilin
“Dreams Floating2”, Wang Ruilin
Wang Ruiling creating a sculpture
Ruilin creating a sculpture

For more Chinese art: Abgstage01

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Contemporary 当代 纵观艺术 艺术家

Contemporary| Zhou Jun – The Thick Red Line

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

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
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
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
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
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
“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
A “wounded” porcelain vase, surrounded by scaffoldings

For more informations about Zhou Jun’s work: https://www.redgategallery.com/Artists/Zhou_Jun-photography/index.html

or: http://www.artlinkart.com/en/artist/wrk_yr/dbabrws/1eccAtt/2006

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Contemporary 当代 纵观艺术 艺术家

Contemporary | Li Xiaofeng – Porcelain Heart

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
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. 

porcelain dress 1
These dresses are fully wearable
porcelain dress 2

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
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
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
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

2019Dreaming of Crafts of the Future: Mongyudowon Unfolds, 11th Cheongju Craft Biennale 2019, Culture Factory C, Cheongju
2018Cracked – Porcelain, Red Gate Gallery
 2D vs 3D, Red Gate Gallery
 798, We Are Back, Red Gate Gallery
2017Red 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
2016Red Gate: The Next 25 Years, Red Gate Gallery
2015China: Through the Looking Glass，The Metropolitan Museum of Art, USA
20145th Tanwan Ceramics Biennale, Taipei County Yingge Ceramics Museum, Tanwan
 ST. Start International exhibition of the Chinese Contemporary Ceramic Art, Today Art Museum, Beijing
20137th Gyeonggi International Ceramic Biennale 2013 Korea, Icheon CeraMIX Creative Center, Korea
2011Ming to Nirvana, Red Gate Gallery
2010Head On, Red Gate Gallery
 Width Contemporary Art Exhibition, Museum of Contemporary Art, Beijing
2008Virginia Miller Gallery, Miami
 Asian Contemporary Art Fair, New York
2006Sculpture, Pickled Art Centre
 Consumption Times I, Ha Te Art Centre
2005Diversity and Construction, Beijing
2004X Yard, Beijing
 Beijing International Art Camp
2002CAFA Graduates’ Exhibition

For more informations about Li Xiaofeng’s work: https://www.redgategallery.com/content/li-xiaofeng

or: https://www.artsy.net/artist/li-xiaofeng

Categories
LAVORATO 当代

Contemporary | Art and inner communication-Zhu Yaning

ART BAIGUAN Hello, can you introduce yourself?

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
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
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
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
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
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
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?