2019.10.09 Wed, by
Zheng Bo: Goldenrod

Goldenrod by ZHENG Bo opens as the inaugural exhibition at the new ICA at NYU Shanghai

SHANGHAI, CHINA: Opening on 10 October 2019, the Institute of Contemporary Arts at NYU Shanghai (ICA at NYU Shanghai) will present an exhibition of Hong Kong-based artist ZHENG Bo, Goldenrod (on view through 21 December 2019). The inaugural exhibition marks the re-opening of the university art gallery of NYU Shanghai after a two-year hiatus and the launch of its new institutional identity as the ICA at NYU Shanghai. The Fall 2019 exhibition and related events are also the first season of a two-year artistic research program, The (Invisible) Garden.

ZHENG Bo, Plants Living in Shanghai, 2013.  Public art and education project.  Courtesy of the artist. 郑波,《住在上海的植物》,2013。公共艺术和教育项目。感谢艺术家提供图片。

ZHENG Bo, Plants Living in Shanghai, 2013. Public art and education project. Courtesy of the artist.

郑波,《住在上海的植物》,2013。公共艺术和教育项目。感谢艺术家提供图片。


Goldenrod is an exhibition of new and existing work made by artist Zheng Bo, in collaboration with plants and people in Shanghai. In a collection of drawings and a video installation, Zheng Bo and his collaborators attempt acts of intimacy through embodied knowing and lovemaking with plants. A workshop with gardeners, thinkers, artists, and designers imagines a potential site for social and political experimentation by gathering plants and people in the form of a garden. With these works, we move through looking, touching, thinking, building – and sometimes eating, to trouble our relationships with plants as emblems of Nature, as native/invasive species, and as figures in histories of colonialism, capitalism, and socialism. Together, these works ask us to consider plants as models of being-in-the-world and as equal agents in the making of our world.

Zheng Bo, A Chinese Communist Garden in Paris, 2016-ongoing.  Workshops at Villa Vassilieff and École du Breuil, Paris. Courtesy of the artist. 郑波,《巴黎之中华共产主义花园》,2016年至今。巴黎瓦西列夫别墅的工作坊。感谢艺术家提供图片

Zheng Bo, A Chinese Communist Garden in Paris, 2016-ongoing. Workshops at Villa Vassilieff and École du Breuil, Paris. Courtesy of the artist.

郑波,《巴黎之中华共产主义花园》,2016年至今。巴黎瓦西列夫别墅的工作坊。感谢艺术家提供图片


ZHENG Bo, Pteridophilia 3, 2018. Video (4K, color, sound); 15 min. Courtesy of the artist. 郑波,《蕨恋3》,2018。录像(4K,彩色,有声);17分钟。感谢艺术家提供图片。

ZHENG Bo, Pteridophilia 3, 2018. Video (4K, color, sound); 15 min. Courtesy of the artist.

郑波,《蕨恋3》,2018。录像(4K,彩色,有声);17分钟。感谢艺术家提供图片。


Goldenrod further searches the many registers of Nature’s meaning and representation with a talk by cultural studies scholar ZHU Yu, a workshop with artist-scholar Elaine Gan, and a performative lecture by theorist XIANG Zairong.

Goldenrod and its related events are presented as the first season of The (Invisible) Garden, a two-year artistic research program that inquires into the garden as a method that shapes our understanding of Nature and our relationships to other species. For four seasons, from Fall 2019 through Spring 2021, the ICA at NYU Shanghai will present artists, thinkers, and practitioners, through exhibitions, events, and a publication, to consider the garden and ask how might we denature Nature?

Poster

About the Artist
ZHENG Bo is an artist committed to human and multispecies equality. He investigates the past and imagines the future from the perspectives of marginalized communities and marginalized plants. He is learning to cultivate ecological wisdom for a Good Anthropocene.

He has worked with a number of art spaces and museums in Asia and Europe, most recently @KCUA (Kyoto), Asia Art Archive (Hong Kong), Parco Arte Vivente (Torino), TheCube Project Space (Taipei), Villa Vassilieff (Paris), Times Museum (Guangzhou), and Sifang Art Museum (Nanjing). In 2018, his works have been included in perennial exhibitions such as Manifesta 12, Cosmopolis #1.5, the 11th Taipei Biennial, the 2nd Yinchuan Biennial, and the 1st Thailand Biennial.

He taught at China Academy of Art from 2010 to 2013, and currently teaches at the School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong.

About ICA at NYU Shanghai
The Institute of Contemporary Arts at NYU Shanghai is a non-profit kunsthalle and research center committed to the development, presentation, and exchange of diverse ideas through contemporary arts. Our commitment is based on a core belief that engagement with art engenders critical thought, creativity, and openness to complexity, across disciplines and society and in everyday life.
From 2015 to 2017, the NYU Shanghai Art Gallery was established as one of the few university-affiliated art institutions in China to focus on contemporary art.

In Fall 2019, following a two-year hiatus, the university art gallery of NYU Shanghai reopens to the public with a new mission and reinvigorated vision as the Institute of Contemporary Arts at NYU Shanghai. The ICA at NYU Shanghai builds upon the earlier ambitions of the Gallery, while expanding our aims to emphasize experimentation, to further understand art and exhibition-making as a form of research, and to learn from artists living and working today.

About NYU Shanghai
NYU Shanghai is China’s first Sino-US research university and the third degree- granting campus of the NYU Global Network. It was founded in 2012 by New York University and East China Normal University with the support of the city of Shanghai and the district of
Pudong. NYU Shanghai seeks to cultivate globally-minded graduates through innovative teaching, world-class research, and a commitment to public service.

All undergraduate students pursue a course of study that will equip them with a broad knowledge base and tools to become creative thinkers and active learners throughout their lives. Our undergraduate student body currently consists of 1,300 students, half of whom are from China. Students from the United States and some 70 other countries represent the other half. Our faculty of renowned scholars, innovators, and educators are recruited from the world’s best research universities.

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