Exhibition Brief:
Art+ Shanghai Gallery begins the 2013 year of programming with a much-anticipated solo exhibition from Shanghai-based artist Zhang Lehua. Love in a Golden Bowl explores how meaning is communicated and lost through a process of reading art. Employing ambiguity in his text and deliberate miss-translations, Lehua plays with paradox and irony to peel away surface meanings and ultimately reveal contrary interpretations of life.
The title for the exhibition was borrowed from Thel’s Moto in the introduction to “The Book of Thel”, a poem by William Blake (1789).
Can the eagle see what is in the pit,
Or wilt thou go ask the mole?
Can wisdom be put in a silver rod,
Or Love in a golden bowl
The credit for this reference of Lehua as a post-modern Blake is owed to a Shanghai-based art writer who in conversation drew comparisons from the themes of maturation and sexual experience in Blake’s poetry to the young and often naïve coming of age scenarios in Lehua’s artwork.
For this particular title, it is suggested that both poets share an interest with the alienation of authority, Blake in his theological references and resentment towards the state church and Lehua in his animosity towards mainstream society and mockery of educational doctrine.
In a showcase of painting, video and installation, Love in a Golden Bowl discusses culturally sensitive issues via popular topics among China’s youth.
For further information, high-resolution images or artist interviews please contact the gallery.
About the Artist:
Born 1985 in Shanghai, Zhang Lehua graduated from the Huashan Art School and later studied in the New Media Art Department at the China Academy of Art, Huanghou campus. He presently lives and works in Shanghai. Lehua’s artistic practice has focused on video, installation, performance, photography, and more recently painting. More recently he has developed a series of poster and canvas paintings that derive their tone and aesthetic from high-school education posters and material. Zhang is also a member of the loosely based collective Double Fly. Lehua’s major exhibitions to date include the solo exhibition “Black-bone Chicken” at C5 Art Centre in Beijing (2009) and group participations in Virtual Voices: Social Media Art from China (Charles H. Gallery, Vancouver, Canada), Utopia Nowhere (Art+ Shanghai Gallery, 2011), Get it Louder (2010, Dutch Culture Centre, Shanghai), 798 Art Festival (2010, 798 Art District, Beijing), Art Economies (2009, Osage Gallery, Shanghai), Interlude Art & Life (2008, Zendai MoMA, Shanghai), Future Future (2007 ShanghArt Gallery H Space, Shanghai), Refresh (2007, Arario Gallery, Beijing).
