RTSM｜Tearing & Regenerating：刘建华 & 邬建安

2020艺讯网英文版最新线上展览项目“Reflecting the Sharing Moment”（缩写为RTSM）正式开启，第二期“撕裂·修复”已上线！我们邀请了12位来自世界各地的艺术家，带来他们在2020的思考和创作。第三期将于11月末上线，敬请期待！

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RTSM｜2020线上展览

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Based on More Than The Immune Problem, the second section Tearing & Regenerating invites 12 artists from home and abroad. The online exhibition presents the life in the pandemic as the starting point, which continues to observe and explore the topic of how artistic expressions and thoughts act on the impacted society and individuals, thus seeking comfort, love, and regeneration. In addition, with a further attention on the virtual field and advanced science and technology, it broadens the horizon on the topic such as AI and existence, digital skills and expression of emotions, and so on.

In this section, we would like to introduce artists LIU Jianhua and WU Jian'an, as well as their artistic reflections to the year 2020. 

A Re-interpretation of Individuality and Spirituality in Contemporary Times

Liu Jianhua was born in 1962. Now he lives and works in Shanghai, China. He is one of China’s best-known contemporary artists who experiments with comprehensive materials.

In 1989, within a contemporary context, he started his own experimental practices. His porcelain and mixed media works reflect the economic and social changes in China as well as the problems that follow. In 2008, he shifted his previous close and direct attention onto the problems that emerged in China from globalization and the sharp social changes to “no meaning, no content”, which declared the fairly new exploration of his creation with works Untitled in 2008 and therefore has developed his own expression system for contemporary art.

Liu Jianhua’s works have been exhibited at Smart Museum of Art in 2020, Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 2019, solo exhibitions at OCAT Shenzhen in 2019 and at Made in Cloister Fondazione in Naples (Italy) in 2018 and a Minimalist exhibition at the National Gallery Singapore, the international art exhibition VIVA ARTE VIVA of the 57th Venice Biennale, the 6th Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale, the 14th International Sculpture Biennale of Carrara, the 17th Biennale of Sydney, the 2nd Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, The 1st Singapore Biennale, The 6th Shanghai Biennale, the 50th Biennale di Venezia China Pavilion and exhibitions held by institutions including Kunst museum Bern (Switzerland), Asian Art Museum San Francisco (US), Groninger Museum (Netherland), Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien (Austria), Hamburg Art Center (Germany), Mori Art Museum (Japan), Tate Modern (UK), Center Pompidou (France), etc. His works have been collected by Tate Modern (UK), MoMA (US), Victoria&Albert Museum, Towada Art Center (Japan), Guggenheim Museum (US), The Art Gallery of New South Wales (Australia), etc.

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1.2 Meters, 2012-2020, Iron wires, Variable dimensions

Installation View in OCT Boxes Art Museum, 2020

1.2 Meters presents a constant feeling that is deeply woven into people’s daily life. This piece utilizes iron wires as its medium, re-appropriating these mundane connective tools by elevating their utility from the anonymous materials of mass production to the precious status of rarefied art objects. Iron wires have been transformed and expanded from a kind of relatively violent material into a clearing where elegance and danger co-exist, opening a new perspective and the possibility of refreshed analysis and judgment.

The era of information overload also poses a threat of cultural homogenization. In response to the pervasive current psychological state of people, trapped in an unthinking addiction to rapid development and technological innovation, Liu Jianhua tries to awaken a traditional spirit through his artistic creation. He provides a reflection and introspection that is independent of any popular value and interest, a re-interpretation of individuality and spirituality in contemporary times.

Installation View in OCT Boxes Art Museum, 2020

The End of 2012, 2017-2020, Porcelain, Variable Dimensions

Installation View in Pingshan Art Museum (PAM), 2020

The original idea of The End of 2012 came from an ice crack on a Chinese garden window pane. Through this artwork, the artist hopes to pull people away from the hustles and bustles of the real world, to free them from all contemplation that bounds the modern mind and to provide them with a specific space that allows the possibility of freedom.

“The Incarnation Series”

Wu Jian’an was born in Beijing in 1980. He currently lives and works in Beijing as a professor and M.A. student Supervisor at the School of Experimental Art, Central Academy of Fine Arts, he is also a researcher at the Chinese Arts and Crafts Institute at Prince Gung’s Palace Museum, under the China Ministry of Culture and Tourism, and sits on the academic board of Beijing Zoo.

As Professor Wu Hung from the University of Chicago said, “Wu’s imagination has always operated simultaneously on multiple dimensions. Likewise, his works simultaneously expand the viewer’s artistic imagination in various directions. He travels between words and images while adding a layer of storytelling above figuration and abstraction. He introduces sound and performances to break away from mere visuals and viewing. He freely traverses temporal divides, instantaneously taking viewers from today’s world back to mysterious primeval times. His art spans various media and styles: painting, sculpture, paper cut, and installation, all of which provide him with a varied vocabulary yet also arouse his desire to cross boundaries—to integrate, transgress and disarrange.” 

In 2017, Wu Jian’an represented China in the 57th Venice Biennale. In recent years, his works have attended Live and Let Live: Creators of Tomorrow—The 4th Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale (Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Fukuoka, Japan, 2009), Mind in Landscape (The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington DC, USA, 2011), ALLES UNTER DEM HIMMEL GEHORT ALLEN, Chinese Public Art in Kassel (Kassel, Germany, 2012), Cosmos (Shanghai 21st Century Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai, China, 2014), The Carolyn Hsu and René Balcer Collection: Exploring Three Decades of Contemporary Chinese Art (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, USA, 2015), Lunar New Year: The Year of the Monkey (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, USA, 2016), Serpenti Form (Art Science Museum, Singapore, Singapore; Mori Art Gallery, Tokyo, Japan, 2017), Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial 2018 (the 7th Echigo-Tsumari, Japan, 2018), etc. He has held several solo exhibitions in Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong and New York City.

Wu Jian’an’s works are in the permanent collection of Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Berkley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive, Cornell University Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Oscar Niemeyer Museum, Central Academy of Fine Arts Museum, Beijing Minsheng Art Museum and Asia Art Archives, etc.

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King Yu Who Tamed the Flood

Engraved on watercolor paper, watercolor, acrylic, soaked in beeswax, cotton thread stitched and mounted on silk

162x175cm 2020

The Incarnation series is highly representative of Wu Jian’an’s work. The elements within come from his large scale 2011 installation Seven Layered Shells. In Seven Layered Shells, Wu created 186 different forms, some coming from the mysterious ancient Chinese scripture The Classic of Mountains and Seas. Wu set out to create “portraits” for these grotesque and exiled monsters, while combining them with his other creations including satirical cartoons, physical embodiment of slangs, elements from Christianity, Buddhism and Hinduism, graffiti, T-shirt designs and cartoon characters. As stated by Professor Haun Saussy from University of Chicago whose research focuses on Comparative Literature, East Asian Languages and Civilizations and Social Thought: “You would discover that something extremely simple suddenly becomes a very complex work of art, as these bodies of varying sizes and layers are staring back at us with countless pairs of eyes, while going about their own business and ignoring our presence… opening up to an unthinkable cultural externality within the confines of their physical likeness… and therefore, his artwork is not only a so-called ‘retreat to Chinese traditionalism’ but rather a transcendence.”

Tiger of the Daylight

Engraved on watercolor paper, watercolor, acrylic, soaked in beeswax, cotton thread stitched and mounted on silk

160x120cm 2020

Wu takes the elements that make up Seven Layered Shells as his “alphabet” to create this new Incarnation series. In these new works, thousands of miniature images are overlaid upon each other to create a complex and magnificent visual texture. Seven Layered Shells is a metaphor of certain social values: Only when an individual finds his perfect absolute position can the whole be perfect as a result. In the Incarnation series, however, Wu attempts to break this formulaic relationship between the individual and the collective: The individual coalesces within a condensed and chaotic intertwining formation to an ambiguous ensemble, whose colorful liveliness extends beyond any pre-destination, but rather growth of a self-determined individual. In its current iteration, Incarnation constructs the world of Da Yu ( Yu the Great) taming the devastating flood. At the center of the wall is Da Yu ( Yu the Great), flanked by heroes defeating monsters derived from ancient Greek mythology. The tigers on either wall represent day and night and hinting at celestial movement: time hops around like powerful tigers. The embodiment of time or heroes are both made up of countless fragments from mythology and tales. These are the tools by which we perceive the world.

Tiger of the Night

Engraved on watercolor paper, watercolor, acrylic, soaked in beeswax, cotton thread stitched and mounted on silk

137x180cm 2019

Image and Text Courtesy of the Artists.

Edited by Sue and Emily/CAFA ART INFO

Tearing & Regenerating

Reflecting the Sharing Moment | Section Two

2020艺讯网线上展览 | 第二回

Launch Date: 2020.10.30

Participating Artists

 (in alphabetical order of surnames):

Domenico BARRA, CHEN Qi, CHEN Wenji, FENG Mengbo, Wendy LETVEN, LIANG Quan, LIU Jianhua, LIU Qinghe, MA Liuming, SHI Jinsong, TANG Hui, WU Jian'an

Curator: Emily ZHOU

Visual Design: Yizhi ZHANG

Organizer: CAFA ART INFO

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