Press Release
From “Creative Center” to “18Gallery”, now a new milestone “Bund18 Temporary Art Space” will be presented to the world in 2013. To open “Bund18 Temporary Art Space” with a bang, we are honored to cooperate with a well-known contemporary artist Xu Zhen, who will be working on his art, an onsite project exhibited from May 11th to July 31st in Bund18’s lobby.
Action Painting
“Turbulent” consists in black, abstract, cage-like patterns paintings of various sizes and shapes, all created with black spray paint, from a set point towards the borders of the canvas.
Nozzles remain on the work indicating its creation process. This simple action and combination, provides a new way of appreciating abstract painting.
This apparently easy and simple practice, initiated by an ‘action’, results in a certain form of painting, based on pictorial experiences. To a certain level, the act of exhibiting itself is more important than the paintings. The action process and the language of spray painting ‘legitimate’ each single work, however the exhibition doesn’t emphasize on this aspect, on the contrary it purposely reduces it; paintings resemble wallpapers, or a multi-faceted installation that interacts within, the viewer might form more or less an understanding towards the time in action painting.
About the Artist: Xu Zhen
Xu Zhen, Born in 1977 in Shanghai. Lives and works in Shanghai, China. He participated in the 49th Venice Biennale in 2001 and won the prize for ‘Best Artist’ at the China Contemporary Art Award in 2004, and has since exhibited his works widely. Representational exhibitions include Xu Zhen: Forbidden Castle (Montanelli Museum, Prague, Czech Republic, 2012) 12 Rooms, Ruhrtriennale (Museum Folkwang, Gelsenkirchen, 2012), Art of Change (Hayward Gallery, London, 2012), 11 Rooms (Manchester International Festival, Manchester City Galleries, 2011).
Aside from being an artist, Xu Zhen also curates and organizes various art activities. He was one of the initiators of the contemporary art forum on internet Art-Ba-Ba (www.art-ba-ba.com) in 2006. In 2009, he established ‘MadeIn Company’, a contemporary art creation corporate, focused on the production of creativity, and devoted to the research of contemporary culture’s infinite possibilities. MadeIn Company’s selected exhibitions include: The 7th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (Gallery of Modern Art and Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, Australia, 2012); The Unseen – The 4th Guangzhou Triennial (Guangdong Museum of Art, Canton, 2012); Inside the White Cube (White Cube, London, U.K., 2012); Sleeping Life Away (Nathalie Obadia Gallery, Paris, France, 2012).
