If we say that art styles and artistic trends are often used to identify the characteristics of a generation, the method and morphological appearances of the exhibited works by the participating artists reflect how an artist evolves to a better person through changes in the method which culture has no boundaries and professions has no exclusiveness. As the curator, Cui Cancan stated: “A new way of working inspires artists to explore new identi-ties and new artistic directions. These novel directions redefine and create a new life for the artists themselves. New identities and possibilities are the core of methods of the new generation.”

The formation of such a new generation comes from their sensibility to the society they are currently in. The latest creation of Chen Tianzhuo (born in 1985, now lives and works between Beijing and Shanghai) responds to the well-received concept of NFT in the digital art market, while retains the medium of fine art in the forms of installation, performance, video, painting, and photography. “I do whatever I am interested in, whether it is my main or side job,” Chen Tianzhuo explained. The works of artist Ni Youyu who currently lives in Shanghai include acrylic on canvas, woodcuts, installations, sculptures, and photographic collages. His method is to break through the limits that he perceived. Works such as “Domino of Space” and “Trio” construct multiple spaces that are deeply inward in antique frames, and “Pagoda” uses wood and stainless steel to implicate the idea of scale.

“To Be A Better Man” and “Six Pack”, created by Li Liao (born in 1982, now lives and works in Shenzhen), embody the changes in the city and the environment with the most intuitive approach by using his body. The artist concluded that his semi-fictional autobiographical works principally record his day-to-day life and the method resembles polishing or waiting in consumption. Tong Wenmin (born in1989, now lives and works in Chongqing), who makes good use of the body as a creative element, believes that she has no fixed methods. Her works often focus on stimulating visual poetry and inspiring action through behaviors that at first seem counter-intuitive. Through often simplified or regulated movements, her work hints at the allegorical character of the body and action within a semantically rich context. In “Breeze”, paint-stained branches leave a mark upon her back and the canvas like a breeze. In “Wave”, her body moves with the waves on the beach.

From the “Cola Project” and the “Palate Project”, to the “Lemon Project”, the art practice of He Xiangyu (based in Beijing and Berlin) often begins with his observation of a particu-lar object, event, or phenomenon, working towards the unique and relatively frenetic core. In this exhibition, he creatively combines his introspection and observation of the others in the form of games. Mei Shuzhi founded 702design in Beijing in 2010 and serves as its art director. He is constantly seeking novelty from life, to discover more possibilities of design in everyday life. He demonstrates that through his work of “like a bug which slowly moves with its perception.” Mei Shuzhi’s work “Typography Exit 2” allows the exploratory “watching” experience to break through the limitations of text as a conventional reading media.

Ge Yulu (born in Wuhan, Hubei Province in 1990, and now works and lives in the area around Beijing) uses art as an excuse to apply for approval of day-off for the museum staff in the work “Holiday Times” presented in this exhibition. The price is that he needs to cover for the staff during their day-off to complete the work originally arranged for them. In his opinion, the new generation consists of the ones who do not agree with any of the existing orders. In his work “Michelangelo’s Gift”, Zhou Yilun, an artist currently living in Hangzhou, extended the possibilities of everyday materials through multiple techniques such as splitting, reorganization, and simulation. In his view, the way of working is a life-style—he is someone who cooks every night, but also someone who often drinks in clubs until dawn.

The work “Shop Window” presented by Zhao Zhao, who lives and works between Beijing and Los Angeles, is similar to an autobiographical film. His exhibited cabinet shows the reference of his creative ideas. He claimed that his working method is mixed with multiple concerns, and there is no division of time. Architect Wang Zigeng (born in 1984) once served as the architectural history consultant for the director team of the film “Hidden Man” by Jiang Wen. In his work, he uses art to release out his superfluous mental energy. “1994” is a theatrical installation expounding a personal narrative, in which the artist turns the display of stylized architectural projects into an exploration of places and memories. Liang Chen (born in 1987) describes the series of “Spatial Hypnosis” as “the method of discovering and intervening in the spatial subconscious with space as the main body”. Applying the universe to be the new spatial-temporal coordinate, Liang’s analysis spans the Big Bang from the formation of the earth, to the geology of his hometown Dandong, the constitution of its landscapes, neighborhoods, and streets, and finally ends in the residential building where he grew up, manifested in its three interior decorations from three different periods. Through a sub-conscious recapitulation of childhood city and architectural space, Liang Chen intends to depict a sub-consciousness of substance and space.

Zhu Sha (born in1988), a graphic designer and curator who works and lives in Beijing, has begun to intervene in the contemporary art field through curatorial practice in recent years. For him, he aims to establish more links through designing, and the video “Talk and Design” displayed in the exhibition shows how Zhu Sha as an artist completes his “work diary” in a casual and personal way. Drawing Architecture Studio (DAS) (founded in Beijing in 2013 by architect Li Han, born in 1978, and designer Hu Yan, born in 1978, dedicated to architectural drawing, architectural design, and urban study) believes that “honesty” brings along with more practical and hands-on experience. “The Complete Map of Capital Beijing” presented in the form of an architectural diorama serves as a con-temporary copy of its original version from the Qing Dynasty. In the scope of 700 x 700 meters, some of most iconic Beijing architecture are collaged, mixed, and blended: from the Yonghe Temple of the Qing Dynasty to the Chinese Anglican Church built in China’s Republican Era; and from the socialist mansion An Hua Lou around the founding period of PRC to the residential areas developed in the 1980s and 1990s. Through a personal reinterpretation, the architectural models are presented in a distant yet familiar form.

In recent years, these most active and representative artists from the new generation have presented a pluralization seen in their diversified identities and works. Cross-cultural, cross-media, and cross-field practice have amplified their uniqueness. In this re-gard, Cui Cancan stated: “This phenomenon is unfolding with changes in the work pro-cess of the new generation. They are redefining the scope of professions—artists no longer simply make art, architects no longer only build houses, and designers no longer work merely graphically. They have a wide range of interests and more diverse occupa-tions that barely show hierarchy and distinction among each other. Their mindset is not just liberal but also ambiguous, and they are always vigorous, imaginative, versatile, and inventive. The style of ‘there is no single style’ has become their style.”

The features of the new generation truly denote the development of a certain era. When we take a closer look at the eclectic methods of these artists, the styles are the manifestation of the domestic development of cities and cultural life in this epoch of globalization. This new generation has also turned out to be a trace of changes that took place in our times. These revolutionary changes are exactly what Wind H Art Center is pursuing to capture in its practice. As a young art institution, since its establishment in 2020, Wind H Art Center has held numerous exhibitions and public education activities that cover multiple disciplines including contemporary art, architecture, and design. Not complying with the inherent value judgments, Wind H Art Center aims to serve as a platform for diversified cultural exchanges and discussions. Through different projects, the art center presents a wider, more connected, and more inspiring art world to the public to enrich the booming contemporary art today in China.

About The Curator

Cui Cancan is an independent curator and writer active in various fields. He has curated nearly 100 exhibitions and events since 2012. His group exhibitions include Walking the Dark Bridge at Night, Country Coiffure, FUCKOFF II, Not Acting in Images, The Sixth ring is One Ring More Than the Fifth, Ten Nights, and High-Rise from the Ground, 2015-2019 New Year’s special project series, Curatorial Classes, Nine-Story Tower, etc. The solo exhibitions he curated include Ai Weiwei, Bao Xiaowei, Chen Danqing, Chen Yufan, Chen Yujun, Feng Lin, Han Dong, He Yunchang, Huang Yishan, Jiang Bo, Li Binyuan, Liu Wei, Liu Gangshun, Liu Jianhua, Li Qing, Li Ji, Li Zhanyang, Mu Er, Ma Ke, Mao Yan, Qin Ga, Qin Qi, Sui Jianguo, Shijiezi Art Museum, Shi Jinsong, Shen Shaomin, Tan Ping, Wang Qingsong, Xie Nanxing, Xia Xiaowan, Xia Xing, Xiao Yu, Xu Zhongmin, Xu Xiaoguo, Zong Ning, Zheng Chunban, Zhang Yue, Zhao Zhao, etc.

About Wind H Art Center

Wind H Art Center is located at the south gate of Beijing’s contemporary art landmark, 798 Art District. It was designed by the renowned architect Dong Yugan. In the interior space, the architect utilized gardening to create contemporary imagery of Mountain-and-Water landscapes.

The Wind H Art Center integrates ideas of incubation, academic research, art exhibitions, collaborative innovation, humanities education, and cultural creativity. The goal is to establish a diversified research-oriented art institution and to create an academic platform for international art exchanges.

The Exhibition Center is committed to discovering and presenting artists and creators’ art practice that explores the academic frontier and the contemporary context. It emphasizes experimentality to demonstrate Chinese contemporary art’s new vectorial development. Simultaneously, the Art Center emphasizes the integration and exchange of different disciplines to build a bridge between art and life, revealing, exploring, and developing the creative potential of human beings.

Time seems to have become more unpredictable in the year 2020. It is at times bent and folded, like a music box with failed dampers playing a familiar yet untuned song. At others it turns into a firm rubber band that has been stretched for a long time. While released all of a sudden, it should have snapped back to the original shape but stopped halfway with wrinkles.

This makes people reconsider “time” and “space” from different perspectives, as well as what they bring to us. Things that have always been controllable, objective, and even overlooked become winding, thus pushing boundaries and blurring picture planes; after getting rid of space, time struggles to appear as a chain of fragments, which reconnects in a sinuous way.

Online Benefit Art Auction for NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore

www.ntuccabenefit.org

Bidding Period 1 – 18 October

Place your bids for works of art to support a unique contemporary art institution in Southeast Asia!

The NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore’s (NTU CCA Singapore) Online Benefit Art Auction aims to raise funds for two vital projects currently underway:

1. NTU CCA Singapore’s Digital Archive – A digitisation project of the Centre’s institutional records which date back to its inception in 2013. The online archive experience will document the Centre’s exploration of Spaces of the Cultural in a dynamic way through material in multiple media, as well as staff and collaborators’ perspectives on its groundbreaking exhibitions, public programmes, residencies, and research initiatives. The archive aims to offer the public unparalleled access to experimental curatorial and artistic practices in Singapore, Southeast Asia and beyond.
2. A publication titled Climates. Habitats. Environments. – A culmination of the Centre’s research focus over the past three years, this book engages with the consequences of globalisation and the climate crisis through a combination of the artistic, the academic, and the cultural.

The projects encompass a twofold proposition – to make available NTU CCA Singapore’s legacy by giving access to its archive, and to disseminate the Centre’s work in Singapore and beyond with a print publication aimed at furthering artistic research. Both projects make accessible and focus on contemporary art and its role in knowledge production, public engagement, and participation.

The Online Benefit Art Auction features artworks donated by artists who have participated in the Centre’s residencies, exhibitions and other programmes, including: Alecia Neo (Singapore), Ang Song Nian (Singapore), anGie seah (Singapore), Animali Domestici (Thailand/Italy), Arin Rungjang (Thailand), Entang Wiharso (Indonesia), Fyerool Darma (Singapore), Haegue Yang (South Korea/Germany), Heman Chong (Singapore), Ho Tzu Nyen (Singapore), ila (Singapore), Jae Rhim Lee (South Korea), Jason Wee (Singapore), Jeremy Sharma (Singapore), Lucy + Jorge Orta (United Kingdom), Magne Furuholmen (Norway), Marjetica Potrč (Slovenia), Ming Wong (Singapore/Germany), Regina Maria Möller (Germany), Robert Zhao Renhui (Singapore), Rossella Biscotti (Italy/The Netherland), Shubigi Rao (India/Singapore), Tiffany Chung (Vietnam/USA), Trevor Yeung (Hong Kong), Wei Leng Tay (Singapore), and Weixin Quek Chong (Singapore).

Each artwork has a unique narrative, created and brought to life as a result of the artists’ visions and active engagement with knowledge, research, community and praxis. These works reflect the Centre’s attention to promulgating ideas that engage with social and ecological concerns.

For those who would like to help through other means, NTU CCA Singapore’s own Artists’ Limited Edition Everyday Items comprising specially commissioned objects made in limited quantities – ranging from scarves, umbrellas, notebooks, raincoats, totes bags to beach towels – are also available for purchase from the auction website. Alternatively, you can also make a donation for any amount here.

The Centre is immensely grateful for the support of all the artists who contributed new or recently commissioned works, especially in light of the COVID-19 pandemic and the precarious financial position of artists and cultural producers around the world.

Let the bidding begin!

1. Alecia Neo (Singapore)

Alecia Neo, Homeostasis, 2017, archival photograph, 81.4 x 115 x 4 cm (framed). Courtesy the artist.

2. Ang Song Nian (Singapore)

Ang Song Nian, As They Grow Older and Wiser, 2017, archival dye-sublimation on polyester textile,
206 x 256 cm
(framed). Courtesy the artist.

3. anGie Seah (Singapore)

anGie seah, The Nightcatcher, 2017, ink on paper, 23 x 18 x 2 cm (framed). Courtesy the artist.

4. Animali Domestici (Thailand/Italy)

Animali Domestici, Bangkok Opportunistic Ecologies, 2019, printed synthetic fabric canvas, embroidery, 300 x 300 x 0.5 cm. Courtesy the artists.

5. Arin Rungjang (Thailand)

Arin Rungjang, Johnston (450% high exposure photoshop), 2016, digital print on paper, mounted on acrylic, 47.3 x 84.1 x 1 cm. Courtesy the artist.

6. Entang Wiharso (Indonesia)

Entang Wiharso, Decoded: Alone, 2015, cast paper, etching collage, gampi paper, copper plate, 28.8 x 34.5 x 10 cm (framed). Courtesy the artist.
Entang Wiharso, Decoded: Hunt, 2015, cast paper, etching collage, gampi paper, copper plate, 40 x 24.5 x 10 cm (framed). Courtesy the artist.
Entang Wiharso, Decoded: Jaga, 2015, cast paper, etching collage, gampi paper, copper plate, 28.8 x 34.5 x 10 (framed). Courtesy the artist.
Entang Wiharso, Decoded: Disconnected, 2015, cast paper, etching collage, gampi paper, copper plate, 40 x 24.5 x 10 cm (framed). Courtesy the artist.

7. Fyerool Darma (Singapore)

Fyerool Darma, Portrait of Win$ton_ed-Jaga_d_paradiso, 2019, poster print with adhesive on wood, detritus and clear epoxy with artist frame, 42 x 59.4 x 15 cm (framed). Courtesy the artist.

8. Haegue Yang

Haegue Yang, Vegetable Prints – Shanghai Green #2, 2012, prints on 100% cotton paper, water based ink, Shanghai greens, 40 x 40 x 3 cm each (framed). Courtesy the artist.

9. Heman Chong

Heman Chong, Fahrenheit 451 / Ray Bradbury (3), 2020, acrylic on canvas, 61 x 46 x 3.5 cm. Courtesy the artist.

10. Ho Tzu Nyen (Singapore)

Ho Tzu Nyen, 4 x 4 – Episode of Singapore Art, 2005, video, 20 min. Courtesy the artist.

11. ila (Singapore)

ila, ngaku lepat, 2019, photographic print, 29.7 x 42 cm. Courtesy the artist.

12. Jae Rhim Lee (South Korea)

Jae Rhim Lee, The Infinity Burial Suit, 2016, biodegradable fabric, biomix, 209.5 x 186.5 cm. Courtesy the artist.

Jae Rhim Lee, The Forever Spot Pet Shroud, 2016, biodegradable fabric, biomix, 50 x 60 cm. Courtesy the artist.

13. Jason Wee (Singapore)

Jason Wee, Labyrinths (Sungei Road), 2017, galvanized steel, mirrors, cotton cloth, rubber-coated fencing, powder-coated steel, 209 x 168 cm. Courtesy the artist.

14. Jeremy Sharma (Singapore)

Jeremy Sharma, Eaton, 2014, polyurethane foam (Relief wall Sculpture made with foam), 70 x 50 x 9 cm. Courtesy the artist.

15. Lucy + Jorge Orta (United Kingdom)

Lucy + Jorge Orta, Amazonia Drop Parachute, 2014 – 2016, archival pigment print and pencil, 54x 38 cm. Courtesy the artist.

16. Magne Furuholmen (Norway)

Magne Furuholmen, Climax Aluminium, 2008, photo etching on paper,
72.6 x 56 x 4 cm (framed). Courtesy the artist.

17. Marjetica Potrč (Slovenia)

Marjetica Potrč, Small-Scale Worlds, 2007, marker and ink on paper, 28.7x 37.3 cm (framed). Courtesy the artist.

18. Ming Wong (Singapore/Germany)

Ming Wong, Untitled, 2019, photography, 40 x 30 cm. Courtesy the artist.

19. Regina Maria Möller (Germany)

Regina Maria Möller, Schutz Mantel (Protective Cape), Regina Maria, model #1, 2019, textile, embroidery, drawing, 53 cm (diameter). Courtesy Regina Maria Möller and © Regina Maria Möller, VG Bild-Kunst Bonn, 2019

20. Robert Zhao Renhui (Singapore)

Robert Zhao Renhui, New Forest (Kingfisher) II, 2019, digital inkjet print on aluminium panel, 74 x 111 cm. Courtesy the artist.

21. Rossella Biscotti (Italy/The Netherland)

Rossella Biscotti, Extraction, 2020, photography, 28 x 50 cm. Courtesy the artist.

22. Shubigi Rao (India/Singapore)

Shubigi Rao, Untitled (Books rescued from the burning National Library in 1992, still homeless. Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina), 2018, giclée prints on acid- and lignin-free Hahnemühle fine art photo rag 300gsm, 42 x 59.4 cm (framed). Courtesy the artist.

23. Tifany Chung (Vietnam / USA)

Tiffany Chung, Guatemala Agrarian Reform vs CIA Operation PBSUCCESS, 2019, digital print, 40 x 24 cm. Courtesy Tiffany Chung and Jorge L Hurtado.

24. Trevor Yeung (Hong Kong)

Trevor Yeung, Cynic’s Routine, 2019, archival inkjet print,
40 x 60 cm. Courtesy the artist.

 25. Wei Leng Tay (Singapore)

Wei Leng Tay, 5 pink peonies, China. 2 Honey Murcott mandarins, Australia. 1 marble and rosewood table circa 1950s, China. 10 sec, f20, 320 ISO, 37mm. Tungsten light source from right. 11/12/2019, 7.09pm, Singapore, 2019, archival pigment print,
53.5 x 73.5 cm (framed). Courtesy the artist.

 26. Weixin Quek Chong (Singapore)

Weixin Quek Chong, mobile lava flow, 2018, photographic print on aluminum,
64 x 45 x 0.2 cm. Courtesy the artist.

While the COVID-19 pandemic continued extending its reach across the globe, the month of May in Beijing, with the return of Gallery Weekend Beijing and two new museums opening, seemingly saw the Beijing art world bouncing back to a steady drum of exhibitions. Yet the emergence of new cases of COVID-19 in early June (at Xinfadi Market, Beijing) put Beijing on edge once more. Meanwhile, a few spaces upped sticks, and since it’s that time of the month again, an art district was demolished, and news of disputes/conflicts between artists and institutions popping up every now and then, not to mention a museum hooking up with 20 galleries to put on an exhibition, and certain artists actively taking part and live streaming. Such has been the complex polyphony making up Beijing’s current art scene.

After having been postponed for over two months, the fourth edition of Gallery Weekend Beijing finally launched on 22–31 May. The first large-scale art event in Beijing since the pandemic broke out, the 22 participating galleries and non-profit institutions presented a series of exhibitions, public art installations, discussions, and performances at the 798 art district as well as online. The absence of foreign exhibitions and collectors has put a certain degree of pressure on Gallery Weekend Beijing; quite a few galleries mentioned seeing fewer collectors, but that of course is to be expected given the circumstances. Being the first art platform and project to take the lead in restarting, Gallery Weekend Beijing certainly kept up its influence, not least in invigorating the mood of the Beijing art world.

For the first time, Gallery Weekend Beijing 2020 split the “Best Exhibition Award” into two: “Best Exhibition Award: Innovation Prize” went to the exhibition “Ge Yulu” at Beijing Commune, while the “Best Exhibition Award: Master Prize” was awarded to both Zhu Yu’s solo exhibition “Mute” at Long March Space and Duan Jianyu’s solo exhibition “Life” at Hive Center for Contemporary Art. The exhibition of the emerging sector, “Those who see and know all, are all and can do all” highlighted 19 artists and artist-groups, with videos and installations taking up the better part of the show—which to a certain extent indicated the overall tendency in this year’s Gallery Weekend Beijing.

Zhu Yu exhibition, Long March Space, 2020

Duan Jianwei exhibition, Hive Center for Contemporary Art, 2020

Of the 22 galleries and institutions, more than half of the shows involved hangable art, evenly divided between abstract and figurative works, with the former seen in Galerie Urs Meile, Ginkgo Space, PIFO Gallery, and White Box Art Center, among others, and the latter figured in the exhibitions at Magician Space, Platform China, Star Gallery, Space Station, N3 Contemporary Art, just to name a few. Videos and installations took up a good proportion, with some exploring the art of video itself, such as “Embodied Mirror: Performances in Chinese Video Art” at New Century Art Foundation’s Beijing Space; others explored the relationship between history and reality, such as AES+F’s exhibition with their large-scale video installations at “What Came to Pass” at Tang Contemporary Art, exploring the globalization of contemporary culture through grand visual narratives. Tang Contemporary Art’s Second Space exhibited Zhao Zhao’s large new installations “White”, probing the history of cotton.

Li Binyuan, “Free Farming”, 2014, video, color, sound

Zhao Zhao exhibition, Tang Contemporary Art, 2020

Thematically speaking, quite a few exhibitions reflected on, reassessed, or scrutinized the contemporary condition. The group exhibition presented by UCCA, “Meditations in an Emergency” focused on everyday life, the body and biopolitics, the human/animal dichotomy, migration and borders, and the information landscape. Ge Yulu, too—with his new work, in which the bodily generation of electricity through cycling transforms an everyday movement into the electricity used in the exhibition space—reminds us to re-consider our own “supplementary electric supply.” Online forums and discussions such as “Perspectives from the International Art Community: Challenges and Possibilities in a Time of Global Crisis” and “Post-Pandemic Age: How to Revisit Contemporary Art in China through the History of Thought and Methodology” equally emphasized reflections on the contemporary.

Ge Yulu exhibition, Beijing Commune, 2020

Two of the key galleries chose to present retrospectives of some form or another. With 2019 being the 15^th anniversary of Galleria Continua’s Beijing space, last October saw the start of the exhibition “15 Years of Galleria Continua in China: To Be Continua”, with new alterations added every month. Running through to the end of this summer, the gallery has taken turns presenting many works by artists who had their first major solo exhibition at the Beijing space. Tokyo Gallery, too, celebrated their 70^th anniversary (they started BTAP in Beijing in 2002) with “We Will Meet Again: 70^th Anniversary Exhibition of Tokyo Gallery + BTAP”, showcasing works by the 39 Chinese artists they have collaborated with since BTAP started up in Beijing.

15 Years of Galleria Continua in China: To Be Continua, Galleria Continua Beijing, 2020

During Gallery Weekend Beijing, two new institutions opened. Wind H Art Center, towards the southern gate of 798, opened with “From Screen to Mind: A 50 Year History”, which organized video works by 23 avant-garde Western artists in an exploration of the origins of online and screen art. Another museum up in Cuigezhuang, Chaoyang, received a good deal of attention thanks to its millennial founders: X Museum, opening its doors on 29 May with “How Do We Begin?”, an exhibition that explores interdisciplinary art and youth culture in three “chapters”—“Media and Technology”, “Social Reflector”, “Artists and Architects as Narrators”.

Yet whatever momentum of recovery was knocked back by new cases of COVID-19 in Beijing in early June, to the point of feeling like March all over again. A few art spaces, too, closed or moved for various reasons: The Bunker closed, while XC•Hua Galleries moved out of its Beijing space. What’s more, from late May to mid-June, Beijing’s art districts continued to face demolition or orders to vacate: Caochangdi No. 300 and Dongyuan were demolished (including the studios of the poet Yu Xinqiao and the curator Tang Peixian); Shunyi Shuipo Art Village was demolished; Jiu Chang Art Complex was asked to vacate. Even Li Xianting, in Songzhuang Art District for decades, wrote a post and denounced the way the local authorities were chasing out artists. Such “everyday” news also involved a framing company in Jinzhan, Beijing, which not having moved out in the designated time frame had many artists’ artworks damaged; and another news item was related to the dispute between the artist Zhang Xiaotao, Xia Jifeng, and the former Iberia Center for Contemporary Art.

Caochangdi Art District under demolition, photographed by Zhang Zongxi, 2020

On another note, Song Art Museum, along the banks of the Wenyu river, allocated its numerous exhibition halls to galleries, splitting and delegating the choice of artists as well as the workload of exhibition-making between the galleries: 20 galleries from Beijing, with 20 artists shown at the same time. “2020”, which opened on 19 June, thus became a highlight in the gradually recovering Beijing art world. The world online likewise became a new front, such as Fang Lijun live-streaming his making of a huge print on Douyin/TikTok on 12 June. The latest news is that as a work of the public sector in Gallery Weekend Beijing, Hu Xiangqian’s performance art session “Superfluous Gallery”—which includes online sales of artworks—will be live-streamed on Baidu on 3–4 July. The curator, You Yang even invited the artist, Wang Xingwei, the band Wutiaoren, the writer Annabel Yang (Yang Hao), and others to join in support, attempting to create a “Li Jiaqi” (Austin Li, a major cosmetics influencer) phenomenon in the art world. Naturally, one can foresee how the significance of the event itself will surpass the significance of whatever sales will be made, but one can equally see how artists and curators seem ever more dissatisfied with loitering between “detour” and “access” in the art world.

Translated by Daniel Ho

The opening exhibition 1990 in Cologne was Cosima von Bonin’s first solo show. In the course of a strong orientation towards the new institutional critique we welcomed Michael Krebber, Joseph Zehrer, Christian Philipp Müller, Andrea Fraser, Hans-Jörg Mayer, Heimo Zobernig, Mark Dion, Renée Green, Clegg & Guttmann, Stephan Dillemuth, Kai Althoff, Josephine Pryde, Merlin Carpenter and John Miller.

With Martha Rosler we represent one of today’s most important political artists. Her groundbreaking feminist positions reach back to the 60s.

During the 2000s we began to show a younger generation including Stephanie Taylor, Kalin Lindena, Stefan Müller, Jan Timme, Nairy Baghramian, Lutz Braun, Sven Johne, Rachel Harrison, Sterling Ruby and Michael Beutler.

Kiron Khosla, Gang Zhao and Kader Attia are artists of bilateral heritage who reflect on Western positions from a transcultural perspective.

With Mirjam Thomann, Lone Haugaard Madsen, Keren Cytter, Christian Kosmas Mayer, Dominik Sittig and Julia Haller we gained important younger positions for our program.

In 2010 and 2011 we ran a temporary dependance in Antwerp, a city that strongly influenced the history of avantgarde art during the 1960s and 1970s. At this time we began to represent Belgian artists Joëlle Tuerlinckx and Guillaume Bijl.

Anna Fasshauer, Egan Frantz, JPW3, Sayre Gomez, Luke Willis Thompson, Christine Wang, Gunter Reski and Pedro Wirz joined us more recently.

Since 2019 we represent Chinese artist Ji Dachun and Saudiarabian artist Abdulnasser Gharem, as well as the estate of the German steel sculptor Alf Lechner.

Since 2011 we have been exhibiting artists that struck our attention and who are at the very beginning of their careers in the REISEBÜROGALERIE (Travel Agency Gallery). There we showed for example Peter Wächtler, Adam Harrison, Emmanuelle Quertain, Inka Meissner and Jan Kiefer. Mark von Schlegell and Oona-Léa von Maydell have curated shows, with graduates from the Frankfurt Städelschule among others.

In 2016 we opened Nagel Draxler Kabinett in Berlin with an exhibition of works by Günther Förg, Hans-Jörg Mayer, Martin Kippenberger and Heimo Zobernig.

In 2018 we opened a new gallery space in Cologne (Elisenstrasse 4-6) with an exhibition of new works by New York artist Egan Frantz.

From autumn 2019 on, we also run a space in Munich’s Maxvorstadt (Türkenstrasse 43).

Applications are open for the fourteenth edition of Arte Laguna Prize, one of the most influential and longest-running competitions for emerging artists and designers. The Prize continues its mission of promoting creative talents through art residencies, exhibitions, festival participations and collaborations with companies and this year Arte Laguna has established an important new partnership with MMOMA – Moscow Museum of Modern Art, bringing to Moscow in 2021 a selection of over one hundred works.

With fourteen years of history the Prize, organized by the Cultural Association MoCA (Modern Contemporary Art), gives artists the opportunity to join a huge network of collaborations worldwide, exhibit in the breathtaking location of the Arsenale of Venice, win cash prizes of a total amount of 40.000 euro and much more. New this year is Arte Laguna World (https://artelaguna.world/) the contemporary art platform that connects artists to collectors and art professionals.

The new edition of Arte Laguna Prize renews the section dedicated to design, giving it a new interpretation that is more art-oriented and supported by Assarredo/ FederlegnoArredo: “Giving voice to art and its expressions is fundamental”, states Claudio Feltrin, President of Assarredo, “it allows us to maintain a link with our cultural roots, to which art draws, and helps us to build a bridge to the future, thanks to the work of young artists who propose new languages. Through the collaboration with MoCA (Modern Contemporary Art) in Venice, we want to support artistic projects capable of enhancing culture and design”.

The international jury, led by Igor Zanti, curator of the Prize since its first edition and director of IED Florence, will be composed of: Iwona Blazwick – director of the Whitechapel Gallery in London; Karel Boonzaaijer – designer, architect and professor at the German Universities Fachbereich Gestaltung and FH Aachen; Valentino Catricalà – contemporary art curator and art section director of the Maker Faire – The European Edition; Aldo Cibic – fundamental name of made in Italy design in the world; Erin Dziedzic – Chief Curator at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City, Missouri; Zhao Li – professor at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing and curator of the Chinese Pavilion at the 53rd Venice Biennale; Riccardo Passoni – director of GAM – the Modern Art Gallery in Turin; Vasili Tsereteli – Director of the Moscow Museum of Modern Art.

The jury will select the best applications from the ten disciplines in the competition, which will be on display at the Arsenale Nord in Venice from March 21st to April 13th 2020. Among the exhibited works, the jury will identify four absolute winners who will win the cash prizes of 10,000 euro each.

The Prize obtained a medal from the President of the Italian Republic and is organized with the patronage of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Cultural Heritage, the Veneto Region, the Municipality of Venice, the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, the European Institute of Design and FederlegnoArredo.

Artists and designers from all over the world can participate in the competition without any limitation, the applications must be submitted by November 27th 2019. More information and the terms and conditions are available on www.artelagunaprize.com

Artist in Residence Prizes 

A program of art residences in Italy and abroad to allow an artistic experience of growth in contact with a new environment or a new culture, to create new works and to participate in new activities in a multicultural environment. The residencies are assigned to six artists and are: Fabrica in Treviso, Gridchinhall in Moscow, Espronceda in Barcellona, Basu Foundation for the Arts in Kolkata, Farm Cultural Park in Favara (Sicily), Maradiva Cultural Residency in Mauritius.

Business for Art Prizes

Collaborations with companies in order to connect artists with entrepreneurs who see creativity as a form of communication and productive momentum. This year an artist Under25 from the painting section will win a € 2,500 prize and a collaboration with the Venetian company Majer; three artists will win a € 1000 prize each and spend a month at the Outofblue tourist facility in La Palma – Canary Islands, where they will have the task of enhancing the spaces with site-specific interventions.

Artist in Gallery Prizes 

Organization of 2 exhibitions in international Art Galleries, including setting up, vernissage and catalogue. The venues are: Galerie Isabelle Lesmeister in Regensburg, Germany and Jonathan Ferrara Gallery in New Orleans, United States.

Partecipation in Festivals and Group exhibitions

Selection of eleven artists for participation in collective events in Slovenia at Art Stays Festival and in Beijing with the events organized by Art Nova 100.

Sustainability and Art Prize dedicated to alluminium

The special prize with the CIAL consortium and Ca’ Foscari that rewards with 3,000 euros the best Reuse, Reduce, Recycle proposal for aluminum packaging recycling.

www.artelagunaprize.com    #artelagunaprize   #premioartelaguna

Press Office 

Alessandra Lazzarin

+39 347 2790099 - ufficiostampa@premioartelaguna.it

Elena Pardini
+39 348 3399463 - elena@elenapardini.it

In this exhibition the Nanjing-based artist, who is profoundly rooted in China ́s cultural wisdom, connects to contemporary discourses in painting and pushes the boundaries of his artistic practice forward yet again. Uncertain spaces have been a signature element in the work Xu Hong for a long time. This exhibition discusses three different spatial methodologies the artist has developed.

The first one shows land and seascapes within the (painted) interiors of his artwork. This inversion transforms outside nature into a psychological reality for the artist and therefore, by proxy also for the viewer. When we see the distant landscapes painted by Xu Hong, we immediately search for them within ourselves.

深谷桃源之三 | Peach Orchard in the Valley No.3
木板综合材料 | Mixed Media on Wood
244×488cm （四联拼 | Tetraptych）
2018

此山中 | Inside This Mountain
木板综合材料 | Mixed Media on Wood
180×210cm
2017

早春二月之菊 | Chrysanthemum – Early Spring in February
木板综合材料 | Mixed Media on Wood
166×138cm
2018

The second approach is a new focus, or “zooming in” onto details of landscapes. Differently to his previous work where landscape became an interior reality of  psyche and yet retained quite some distance, the new works seem to surround the viewer with an intensity at very close proximity. These paintings engulf the viewer and give him/her the feeling of getting lost in the dense undershrub of the woods on a foggy day.

The third and most recent development incorporates the material reality of his artworks, broken plywood and scraped paint into the formation of space. When the previous two approaches still made representational suggestions to landscapes – with a few brush strokes the artist can invoke an image of a bamboo twig for example – the new approach forfeits this painterly rhetoric. Instead the artist has begun to fully trust his materials to invoke different notions of landscape as pictorial space. In other words: By shaping the plywood, splintering it, scraping the paint, Xu Hong creates art works that do not represent space (of a landscape), the painting “are” landscape and claim their own painterly reality of space.

For Xu Hong the use of space in his artistic work and pictorial practice is a direct expression of his connection to the world. The ambiguities inherent in his work are part of the complex process of relating that we as humans all have to go through. It is the artist ́s achievement to open our eyes to something that causes unease in most of us. He also gives us ideas on how to face this.

About the artist

Xu Hong was born in Chongqing, China. He graduated from the School of Fine Arts Nanjing University of Arts in 1993, and lives and works in Nanjing. The art creation of Xu Hong can be divided into several stages: from the early experimental sarcastic realism and surrealism to the turning point of depicting interior scenes in 2009, and finally in recent years, his “Peach Orchard in the Valley”, ”Early Spring”, and “Broken Mountain“ series, in which the space in his painting has changed from domestic to the natural landscape. Xu Hong embraces Chinese tradition as the core of his art, expressing the longing for seclusion and the spiritual convert in Chinese literaticulture.

Xu Hong’s latest solo exhibitions include: “Xu Hong: The Space Inside Within” (Triumph Gallery, Beijing, China, 2019), “Peach Orchard in the Valley” (Amy Li Gallery, Beijing, China, 2017), “KSANA : XU HONG & QIN AI” (Today Art Museum, Beijing, China, 2015), “The Morning after a Party” (Zhuzi Arts Center, Nanjing, China, 2013), etc.

About the curator

Thomas Eller is a German artist, curator and writer who lives and works in Beijing. Currently he is artistic director of the Taoxichuan CHINA ARTS & SCIENCES project in Jingdezhen, Jiangxi province. He is also president of the art magazine RanDian. He currently also serves as Vice-president of the board of SAVVY friends, Berlin, since 2015 and is a Board member of MOMENTUM worldwide, since 2012.In the past, he founded the Gallery Weekend Beijing in 2017. From 2008 to 2009 he was director of Temporäre Kunsthalle Berlin, a temporary art museum on the site of the future Humboldtform in Berlin. From 2004 to 2008 he has been founding editor-in-chief of the German artnet magazine and executive manager for artnet ́s German operations.

Thomas Eller has been curating many exhibitions. The most important ones were: “ Painting after Painting after Painting after“ At the Guangdong Museum of Art in 2018 with Franz Ackermann, Thomas Scheibitz and Katja Strunz. In 2014 “Die 8 der Wege” presented an important group of younger artists from Beijing in Berlin. This seminal exhibition introduced the works of artists like He Xiangyu, Zhao Zhao, Lu Song, Guan Xiao, Sun Xun and others to German audience.

He is the recipient of several prestigious awards in Germany. Käthe-Kollwitz-Prize, Akademie der Künste Berlin, 2006, Villa Romana Prize, Florence, 2000, and the Karl Schmidt-Rottluff Prize, 1996.

Chen Chunmu, Jorge Mayet, Li Yiwen,Nathalie Decoster, Raymond Hains, Shi Zhiying, Yan Bo, Zhang Xuerui and Zhao Yiqian.

Memory aims to connect the flow of energy between the creative languages of the selected contemporary artists, creating interesting echoes and correspondences.

Chen Chunmu’s works showcased the theme of warmth and complex feelings of vision, hearing, smell, taste and tactile senses. The fantastic and seemingly complicated painting is actually simple, he paints what he conceives, and the illusive sights are poured onto the canvas.

Jorge Mayet has uprooted himself from Cuba in the mid-1990s and now settled in Brazil. His work explores the themes of dislocation and migration, as well as conveying the feeling of homesickness, disillusion, and disappointment a deported exile might endure.

The nostalgia seen in Li Yiwen’s work seems like either a way to relieve the anxiety of reality, or else a technique of self discovery. Li used pigments to further copy these electronic strokes and to revise his previous works. With new perceptions and experiences superimposed on the old images, the experiences and memories from different periods are superimposed on each other.

Nathalie Decoster approaches different themes in her works: Human relationship to time, the share of thoughts, the comparison between the life of the man and that of the nature. Through her creations, she makes us aware of the absurdity of our lives as modern humans and gives us an access to serenity.

Raymond Hains is considered as one of the most important French Post-war artists. His works constantly challenge people’s perception and definitions of art. Renowned for his torn posters and also a significant series of giant matches.

The way Shi Zhiying illustrates the stones is to create the ambience for the audience to contemplate in a state of simplicity. Not only does she reject to put emphasis on the differences between every stone, but she also takes it further by erasing any possible disparity in terms of their physical characteristics, and therefore the objects she draws become all unified as the same content weighing on the same medium.

Seeking freedom in art forms, Yan Bo uses the mineral material as the foundation in his work; distances himself from the boundary of rectangular or square canvas and creates works in irregular shape. To him, this is how an artist seeks freedom in creation. Every creation process is a wander to the unknowns.

Be them soft as silk or dense as dusk, the rhythmic colors all flow under neat gridlines. Every art piece is an intimate conversation between Zhang Xuerui’s inner world and the canvas; words become hues and shades which are weaved into squares of passion and affection.

For Zhao Yiqian, so many objects are marked with memories, bearing the traces of individual events and past culture. His approach is to take these various everyday appearances (of stories, times, spaces, events and images), and carry out a visual decoding and recoding of them to form a “micro-emotional” painting form, a new micro-narrative of painting.

Chambers Fine Art is pleased to announce the opening on January 24, 2018 of Cao Yi, Li Qing, Yi Xin Tong, and Zhao Zhao: Adrift. The exhibition examines the current urban landscape of China with megacities unimaginable in scale just a few decades ago, through the work of four young artists intimately familiar with this period of rapid change. The transformation of China in the last thirty years has been well-documented, with vast migrations from the country into the cities, and the ecological crisis that has emerged as a result of all this. In the 1990s many artists used this material in their works, for example Song Dong and Yin Xiuzhen, Wang Jianwei, Zhang Dali – but for the younger generation who did not have direct experience of this upheaval, the new realities of contemporary urban life in China have very often become background noise that they barely notice. The four artists presented in this exhibition therefore do not directly reference the urban transformation of China – rather, their experiences growing up and now working within this environment provide a set of viewpoints that is unique to their generation.

Zhao Zhao got to know the topography of Beijing extremely well during the many months he worked on Ai Weiwei’s Beijing videos of the early 2000s, but his references are indirect, such as the exceptional rainstorm in when he painted himself relaxing on an inflatable mattress, floating down the flooded streets of Caochangdi. Based on an actual event, Rain is also the title of a video that Zhao Zhao filmed during the flooding that occurred in Beijing on July 21, 2012. The artist found an inflatable mattress, upon which he floated as he documented the flooded city. As a counterpoint to Rain, on view are a pair of Zhao Zhao’s Sky paintings, representing the artist’s commentary on the heavily polluted air in Beijing. The swirling, turbulent blue and white atmosphere he depicts also serves as a metaphor for the constantly shifting politics of Beijing.

Yi Xin Tong’s project uses thematic material that relates to the influx of rural migrants into urban centers but adds an element of fantasy. His subject is a former zoo in his hometown province within Lu Shan National Park, now a UNESCO Heritage site. The popular zoo closed down decades ago, and in the ensuing years local people and migrants have moved into and out of the animals’ former living quarters, leaving traces of their lives in the buildings. The artist imagines a modern day myth:

“Over time, the inhabitants gradually became infected with the instincts and even the souls of the animals that lived there before. Paws, fangs, and wings grew out of their bodies… Eventually, when they fully transformed into birds and beasts, they escaped from the cages and rushed into the mountains. Some say that instead of turning into animals, they became enlightened immortals…”

Alongside photographs and drawings, a video completes the installation: in front of the now demolished “New Peacock Pavilion”, an old woman’s almost choreographed movements herding her chickens seem to illustrate the odd, strained and yet comedic relationship between human society and nature.

Like Song Dong, Li Qing uses parts of demolished houses, windows and door frames, but in witty tableaux rather than as commentary on the destructiveness of urban renewal. The window frames become picture frames. In his “blow-up” series, first shown at the 9m2 Museum (Goethe Institute, Shanghai), he takes magazine ads and exhibition posters related to Chinese contemporary art from the mid-2000s and enlarges several of them into oil paintings set behind his window frames. The images refer to the sudden explosion of interest in Chinese contemporary art during those years, when the art scene as a whole became an object of desire so excessively amplified by the media that it obscured the original significance of the artworks themselves. Li Qing has transformed one section of the gallery into a faux bathroom, from which the viewer looks out through the ‘windows’ onto this peculiar moment of recent history.

Cao Yi’s paintings are exquisite renderings of a dystopian environment – housing projects with cracked walls and peeling paint, corporate offices, and omnipresent surveillance cameras found in Beijing and every major city in China. The acrylic on paper works are somewhat reminiscent of architectural elevations, but rendered with intense passages of color, often depicting specific details in the foreground: fences, bricks, and vegetation. Among his static portrayals of everyday life in Beijing, there is a small painting of a window with the curtains drawn, with what appears to be glimpses of the buildings outside. Even without the physicality of reclaimed window frames, the piece achieves a feeling similar to Li Qing’s ‘windows’, of being in a small space, looking out upon a foreign, yet familiar landscape. In contrast, the larger works by Cao Yi turn the perspective around completely, with grids of opaque, non-descript windows and buildings leaving the viewer to wonder if there is anyone on the inside.

Chambers Fine Art is pleased to announce the opening on January 24, 2018 of Adrift: Cao Yi, Li Qing, Yi Xin Tong, and Zhao Zhao. The exhibition examines the current urban landscape of China with megacities unimaginable in scale just a few decades ago, through the work of four young artists intimately familiar with this period of rapid change. The transformation of China in the last thirty years has been well-documented, with vast migrations from the country into the cities, and the ecological crisis that has emerged as a result of all this. In the 1990s many artists used this material in their works, for example Song Dong and Yin Xiuzhen, Wang Jianwei, Zhang Dali – but for the younger generation who did not have direct experience of this upheaval, the new realities of contemporary urban life in China have very often become background noise that they barely notice. The four artists presented in this exhibitiontherefore do not directly reference the urban transformation of China – rather, their experiences growing up and now working within this environment provide a set of viewpoints that is unique to their generation.

Zhao Zhao got to know the topography of Beijing extremely well during the many months he worked on Ai Weiwei’s Beijing videos of the early 2000s, but his references are indirect, such as the exceptional rainstorm in when he painted himself relaxing on an inflatable mattress, floating down the flooded streets of Caochangdi. Based on an actual event, Rain is also the title of a video that Zhao Zhao filmed during the flooding that occurred in Beijing on July 21, 2012. The artist found an inflatable mattress, upon which he floated as he documented the flooded city. As a counterpoint to Rain, on view are a pair of Zhao Zhao’s Sky paintings, representing the artist’s commentary on the heavily polluted air in Beijing. The swirling, turbulent blue and white atmosphere he depicts also serves as a metaphor for the constantly shifting politics of Beijing.

Yi Xin Tong’s project uses thematic material that relates to the influx of rural migrants into urban centers but adds an element of fantasy. His subject is a former zoo in his hometown province within Lu Shan National Park, now a UNESCO Heritage site. The popular zoo closed down decades ago, and in the ensuing years local people and migrants have moved into and out of the animals’ former living quarters, leaving traces of their lives in the buildings. The artist imagines a modern day myth:

“Over time, the inhabitants gradually became infected with the instincts and even the souls of the animals that lived there before. Paws, fangs, and wings grew out of their bodies… Eventually, when they fully transformed into birds and beasts, they escaped from the cages and rushed into the mountains. Some say that instead of turning into animals, they became enlightened immortals…”

Alongside photographs and drawings, a video completes the installation: in front of the now demolished “New Peacock Pavilion”, an old woman’s almost choreographed movements herding her chickens seem to illustrate the odd, strained and yet comedic relationship between human society and nature.

Like Song Dong, Li Qing uses parts of demolished houses, windows and door frames, but in witty tableaux rather than as commentary on the destructiveness of urban renewal. The window frames become picture frames. In his “blow-up” series, first shown at the 9m2 Museum (Goethe Institute, Shanghai), he takes magazine ads and exhibition posters related to Chinese contemporary art from the mid-2000s and enlarges several of them into oil paintings set behind his window frames. The images refer to the sudden explosion of interest in Chinese contemporary art during those years, when the art scene as a whole became an object of desire so excessively amplified by the media that it obscured the original significance of the artworks themselves. Li Qing has transformed one section of the gallery into a faux bathroom, from which the viewer looks out through the ‘windows’ onto this peculiar moment of recent history.

Cao Yi’s paintings are exquisite renderings of a dystopian environment – housing projects with cracked walls and peeling paint, corporate offices, and omnipresent surveillance cameras found in Beijing and every major city in China. The acrylic on paper works are somewhat reminiscent of architecturalelevations, but rendered with intense passages of color, often depicting specific details in the foreground: fences, bricks, and vegetation. Among his static portrayals of everyday life in Beijing, there is a small painting of a window with the curtains drawn, with what appears to be glimpses of the buildings outside. Even without the physicality of reclaimed window frames, the piece achieves a feeling similar to Li Qing’s ‘windows’, of being in a small space, looking out upon a foreign, yet familiar landscape. In contrast, the larger works by Cao Yi turn the perspective around completely, with grids of opaque, non-descript windows and buildings leaving the viewer to wonder if there is anyone on the inside.