2019.10.28 Mon, by
GAO WEIGANG and MICHAEL JOO
Aftermath 余波
SGA Shanghai

Gao Weigang and Michael Joo
“Aftermath 余波”
SGA
Three on the Bund, 3F
No.3 Zhong Shan Dong Yi Road, Shanghai
2019.11.8 – 2020.1.8
Vernissage 11.8 Friday  6 – 8 pm

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nrm curatorial project

SGA Three on the Bund announces its new exhibition, Aftermath余波, a dramatic vision by Gao Weigang and Michael Joo of environmental uncertainty and a post-technological world.

“Aftermath余波” masquerades as neutral while suggesting the dystopian outcome of a precipitous event. It conjures dreams of what comes after civilization, history and society – perhaps an endless post-apocalypse, an interminable twilight of the gods. Here history has become civilization’s wasteland, an enervating desert of consumption, littered with objects with forgotten stories and bizarre adaptations. The present is brooding and the future opaque. But there is evidence to sift through to glean what happened, and perhaps find something to help us glimpse what might have been. Welcome to the Aftermath余波.

Gao Weigang, Ten Thousand Years, 2017, Oil on canvas, LED light, 200x200cm, 高伟刚_一万年_布面油彩 LED光源

Gao Weigang, Ten Thousand Years, 2017, Oil on canvas, LED light, 200x200cm, 高伟刚_一万年_布面油彩 LED光源

Gao Wei Gang presents seascapes and mountain-scapes at a scale that invites the viewer to be physically present within the canvas, simultaneously creating anxiety about the fate of the individual enveloped by these harsh environments and sublime awe at the towering beauty of the mountains, terrible and elegiac. Elsewhere Gao’s shipwrecks, abandoned and repurposed containers and even his shadow studies, where glass has replaced glaze for the purposes of creating a sfumato effect, leave us pondering the percussive events that have led to us standing before works of such beguiling intrigue.

Michael Joo’s carbonized sculptures, silver nitrate paintings and blown-glass versions of plastic shopping bags and steel and rope exhibition stanchions each present impermanent things and environments that have been destroyed and distorted in the process of production into works of permanence. Resurrected in alien beauty, the inherent fragility of Joo’s transformed man-made objects suggests an aftermath as yet to be realized.

Michael Joo, Entasis (phloem), 2016, Silver nitrate and epoxy ink on canvas, 335.3x243.8cm, 迈克尔·朱_卷杀(韧皮部)硝酸银油墨画

Michael Joo, Entasis (phloem), 2016, Silver nitrate and epoxy ink on canvas, 335.3×243.8cm, 迈克尔·朱_卷杀(韧皮部)硝酸银油墨画

Gao Weigang and Michael Joo

Gao Weigang 高伟刚

Gao Weigang 高伟刚

Gao Weigang (born 1976, Heilongjiang, China), his works employ a wide range of media, including painting, sculpture, installation, and performance, he evades categorization of his artworks into a particular genre, reflecting his intention while challenging mainstream visual culture through questioning the apparatus of common knowledge and perception. Gao Weigang has widely exhibited across mainland China as well as in Hong Kong, Singapore, London, and New York City, etc. His works have also been collected by many art institutions and foundations such as the Burger Collection, Switzerland; the DSL Collection, Paris, France; Long Museum, Shanghai, China; White Rabbit Collection, Sydney, Australia; K11 Art Foundation, Hong Kong, China, and the Louis Vuitton Group, Hong Kong, China. Gao Weigang currently lives and works in Beijing, China.

Michael Joo 2019

Michael Joo 2019

Michael Joo (born 1969, Ithaca, USA) is a conceptual artist who explores the physical boundaries of materials and objects, from glass stanchions to silver nitrate paintings, contemplating questions of ontology, epistemology and entropy based on place and history. Michael’s work is represented in FNAC, Paris; Guggenheim Museum, New York; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Samsung Centre for Art and Culture, Seoul and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Michael lives and works in New York and Seoul.

Michael Joo, Single Breath Transfer (posterior basal) 2017, Mold-blown glass, 52.5x20x21.7cm, 迈克尔·朱_单呼吸转运(后底部)模制玻璃

Michael Joo, Single Breath Transfer (posterior basal) 2017, Mold-blown glass, 52.5x20x21.7cm, 迈克尔·朱_单呼吸转运(后底部)模制玻璃

About SGA  an open platform for contemporary art and culture 

SGA is a new model for art production and exhibition. Working with local and international partners, SGA instigates, develops and realises cross-cultural projects for contemporary art with leading artists, institutions and international private galleries.

An open platform for exhibitions, collaborations and curatorial projects, SGA is an agent of expanding engagement between art and the wider public, connecting and contextualising the art of greater China and South East Asia with the wider international art worlds. Our objective is to decompartmentalise the art world through situating local understanding within and in contrast to global conversations.

To drive this new direction, nrm have been appointed Artistic Director of SGA. Led by Josef Ng, Andrew Ruff and Christopher Moore, nrm brings over 3 decades of combined experience in art curating, collecting and publishing in Asia.

Gao Weigang

Gao Weigang “Pantheon”, 2019, Mixed media on canvas, 150x120x10 cm, 高伟刚_万神殿_布面综合材料

Press Enquiries

Floria Xu
floria.xu@on-the-bund.com
+86 136 7173 4780