In 2018, ShanghART Gallery will be participating the Gallery Weekend Beijing for the second time , bringing the solo exhibition "Movements" of the artist Liu Xiaohuiand the group exhibition "Shared Narrative(s)" .
Founded in 1996, ShanghART Gallery is one of the first contemporary art galleries established in China. With spaces in Shanghai, Beijing and Singapore, ShanghART has been a driving force of the development of Chinese contemporary art for the past twenty years. Working closely together with over 40 artists, ShanghART regularly participates in the major international art fairs and collaborates with important art institutions in China and from all over the world.
NEW ADDRESS (Nov 2016): ShanghART Gallery Shanghai is newly located on the West Bund.
画廊周北京展览项目
《两个动作》| “Movements”
艺术家：刘晓辉 | Artist: Liu Xiaohui
展览时间：3.4.2018--4.8.2018
无题－三块镜子，布面油画 ｜ Untitled - Three Mirrors, Oil on canvas, 200x300cm, 2015-2017
无题－自由生长，三联画，布面油画 ｜ Untitled - Natural Growth, Triptych, Oil on canvas, 200 x 220cm x 3, 2015- 2017
ShanghART Beijing is pleased to present Liu Xiaohui’s first solo exhibition “Movement” at the gallery, opening on 4th March, 2018. The exhibition showcases the artist’s latest works in recent three years.
Liu Xiaohui’s new works have gradually switched from a painting style with a hint of narrative to an exploration of the ontology of painting which is more reliable and realistic. The distinct order he has once established are at once challenged.
In his recent works, the movement of dressing or undressing makes the overall compositions destabilized for the first time. Abrupt plants (in other words, the color blocks in green, yellow and black) “grow” in a paradoxical world where truth and falsehood are hard to distinguish. They are alienating object that competed for space on his canvas.
For the artist, the subjects of paintings are not clearly constructed by himself; they are more like the outcome of the artist’s accumulation of experiences. Before touching on the “truthfulness”, he continues to confront the struggles and breakthroughs of the individual from the external world, which also reflect his repetitive query of “truthfulness”. From this perspective, every brushstroke on canvas becomes a self-imposed mystery.
Liu Xiaohui was born in Shandong Province, China, in 1975, and moved to Beijing in 1991. He graduated from Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) High School, and subsequently got his bachelor and master degrees from CAFA. In 2007, he was invited to London for an exchange program. He currently teaches at the Mural Painting Department of CAFA. Practicing primarily as a painter, Liu centers the structure of his practice closely around life, taking it as the source of clue (or path). By employing a painterly language and tireless repeating analysis of color, the artist both affirms and denies perennially the immediate experience. He constantly deliberates and refines non-referring subject matters and ordinary scenes. Finally, Liu aims at finding a “space” to practice and assess via permeating effect of quality and quantity.
“共享叙事”作为一个系列策展项目，将在香格纳北京分次呈现多个章节，由艺术家和策展人在具有不规则特质的场域中共同探索另类的展览形式。每位艺术家的“个展”（A， B， C）中会包含或者说伴随下一位艺术家的“一件作品”（a，b， c）出现，a， b， c分享当场的叙事，留下线索，或形成阻碍，也如展览剩余物承载记忆。其结构可以简单描述为：
c & A
a & B
b & C
c + a + b
这种个展－双人展－群展的混合物创造的包容而灵活的框架，让开放的对话，即兴，与不确定性发生，寻求集体的甚至是匿名的作者身份。“共享叙事”试图质疑我们在当下可以创造什么样的美学与权力关系？我们如何呈现或再现关系本身，并在合作与矛盾中将其维持成一种延续的形式？我们自身如何成为彼此的联结？
“Shared Narrative(s)” is a series of curatorial projects consists of multiple chapters, which explores an alternative FORM of exhibition making in an irregular space. Each artist’s solo show (A, B, C) includes or accompanies a work (a, b, c) of the upcoming artist. Therefore, a, b, or c’s presence shares the current show’s narrative, leaves a clue, intervenes, while becoming an exhibition’s leftover which is embedded in our memories. The structure could be simply put in this way:
c besides A
a besides B
b besides C
c + a + b
A mixture of solo, two-person and group show creates a compatible and flexible framework which allows open discussions, improvisations, and uncertainties to take place. It is essentially in praise of collective even anonymous authorship. “Shared Narrative(s)” questions what sort of aesthetic and power relation can we create? How do we (re)present relationship itself or even sustain it in a lasting form via on-going collaborations and conflicts? How do we reside beside each other ?
About the curator： MIAO Zijin was born 1990 in the province of Jiangsu in China. In 2013, she graduated from BA Creative Advertising Strategy (First Class Honours), London College of Communication, University of the Arts London (UAL), London, UK. In 2015, she graduated from MFA Curating (Merit), Goldsmiths, University of London, UK. MIAO Zijin currently lives and works in Beijing.V She worked at LEAP magazine as an editor in 2017. Her articles could be found in Artforum.com, Artforum.com.cn, LEAP, The Art Newspaper China (TANC), Ran Dian, etc. Miao’s research interests include conceptual art, independent art spaces, institutional critique, art making and circulation in the post-medium and post-internet condition. Projects curated by her recently: “I Do (Not) Want To Be Part Of Your Celebration”, Qiao Space & TANK Shanghai Project Space, Shanghai (2017); “Toward The Emergence Of Resistance: Make It Wrong, Till It’s Right”, Taikang Space, Beijing (2016) and “Welcome”, White Space, Beijing (2016).
Yunyu Ayo Shih (b. 1985) currently lives and work in Taipei and New York. He graduated from National Taiwan University with a BA in History in 2007 and School of The Art Institute of Chicago with an MFA in Sculpture in 2014. Since he started to make art in 2010, Shih’s work has always related closely to the space he situated; In Taipei, a city he lived in for ten years, he turn a whole building into the subject of his art in the piece Farewell To A Building, the DDGP (2010). While he is constantly moving and relocating, his works are stored in suitcases and become archives, documents, and books that tells different stories. He frequently explores different appearances of memorial and memory while at the same time involving interactions between himself and state apparatus. Instead of posing a confrontational gesture, he tends to choose coexistent or penetrated attitudes to explore gray areas. Shih’s work has been exhibited at Power Station Art Museum in Shanghai, Taipei Contemporary Art Center, VT Artsalon (Taiwan), Practice Space (NY), 4-18 Space (Bogota), Long March Space in Beijing(2016), Cultural Center Belgrade(2017) and many other space. He has been the recipient of the New Artist Society Award (2012), Taiwan National Cultural Affair Grant (2015), and The National Culture and Arts Foundation Award (2015), and has participated in the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (2014), the Arctic Circle Residency (2015), and 4-18 Residency in Colombia (2015).
Lin Aojie，1986 Born in Guangzhou，2010 graduated from BA Oil Painting, Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, currently lives and works in Guangzhou. Lin Aojie’s artistic practice employs diverse artistic mediums such as video art, installation, painting, photography and etc. Lin’s work, in most cases, departs from a personal experience and expands into the power of the art system, the relationship between art and the artist, and the boundary on the notion of understanding through witty approaches. Other than his personal practice, in 2011, he founded the Double Colour Ball Group with artist Yu Yiyi that made a works with the focus on “how to become wealthy”. In 2015, artists Cai Huansheng, Yu Yiyi, Lai Zhijie, Chen Pai’an founded the official account on WeChat, 3dgroup, that aims at making works of art at “low cost, low tech and minimal returns”. Recent solo exhibition include: “If You Throw Enough Mud at the Wall, None of It Will Stick’’, A+Contemporary, Shanghai (2017). Recent group show include: “BEING INFORMATION Person-a”， SSSSTART, Shanghai, China (2017); “Drawing Pogo”, Taikang Space, Beijing, China (2017), ect.
Richard Kuan received his BFA from Hunter College and is currently a graduate student at the Central Academy of Fine Arts. He also has studied at Nanjing University and participated in the Yale Norfolk program. His work incorporates a wide range of media, including painting, sculpture, photography and installation.
A hub connecting top Beijing contemporary art institutes of domestic or overseas backgrounds, GWBJ is committed to building up a platform for collectors, museums, and art lovers to gain acquaintance with and share the newest achievements of the contemporary art in a single event. In that week the most splendid exhibitions of the year are due to be presented by all participating parties, invites audience back to artworks' original, meticulously curated exhibition sites, so that they can gain a deeper understanding of artist's ideas, and appreciate various characters and stands of art institutes. GWBJ aims to promote the healthy development of the Beijing artistic ecology, and boost the exchanges and dialogues between art and other fields such as the public, the society, and the media.
（本文文字及图片资料来源于香格纳画廊 | Image and Text courtesy ShanghART Gallery；视频版权归属于画廊周北京 | video courtesy Gallery Weekend Beijing）