On September 19, 2015, OCAT Shenzhen will present the solo exhibition Geng Jianyi: East to the Bridge. The exhibition, which will continue to November 1, is also a major project in OCAT’s ten-year anniversary celebration. “East to the bridge” is a story from the artist’s youth. In an unpredictable recounting, it presents the paradoxical state between the knowable and unknowable in individual destiny, and the possible and impossible in individual memory.
Geng Jianyi was born in Zhengzhou, Henan Province, in 1962, and graduated from the Zhejiang Academy of Art (now the China Academy of Art) Oil Painting Department. He currently lives in Hangzhou, teaching at the China Academy of Art. In 1986, together with artists Zhang Peili, Song Ling, Wang Qiang, Bao Jianfei and others, he founded the artist group known as the Pond Society, one of the first conceptual art groups in China. In the 1990s, he organized the postcard art exhibitions Agreed on November 26 as the Reason and 45 Degrees as the Reason, crucial events in the history of Chinese conceptual art that had a positive and lasting influence on avant-garde art creation in Zhejiang, Hangzhou and elsewhere.
Geng Jianyi has been featured in many important exhibitions, including: the 1989 China / Avant-Garde exhibition, the 1993 exhibition After ’89: New Art in China in Hong Kong, China: Avant-Garde in Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark, the 45th Venice Biennale, the 1997 exhibition Another Long March: Chinese Conceptual Art in the 1990s in the Netherlands, the 4th Gwangju Biennial in 2007, the 2007 The Real Thing: Contemporary Art from China at Tate Modern in London, and 85 New Wave: the Birth of Chinese Contemporary Art.
About OCAT Shenzhen
OCAT was founded in 2005, and established a nationwide contemporary art museum group in April 2012. OCAT Museums has venues across the country, including OCAT Shenzhen, OCT Art & Design Gallery, OCAT Shanghai, OCAT Xi’an and OCAT Institute (Beijing). As the group’s headquarters, OCAT Shenzhen has long been committed to researching the theory and practice of Chinese and international contemporary art.
