Artists: Chen Chuanlong, Du Ming, He Zike, Jiang Wenyong, Jiao Meng, Li Hongbiao, Li Youjie, Lin Yilin, Lin Zaichun, Lu Ming, Lu Ying, Ma Ke, Qi Le, Song Ziwei, Squirrel Lee, Tang Linglong, Tang Song, Wang Licheng, Wang Yuanyuan, Wang Yuyang, Yan Lei, Zhang Yanfan, Zhang Yongji

We are proud to present our summer group show—“Are Your Normal?”

Setting the infringement of freedom as the limitation, people’s freedom is boundless; this is a birthright given by god, even though men with servility have wasted such right. Toward individual’s freedom of choice, the thought of “Normal” or “Abnormal” is ludicrous, because it sets current culture norms as standards; however, culture norms are constantly changing. Forget “Normal” or “Abnormal”, individual freedom is the key.

Contemporary art is the secretion of individual freedom, but in this society where people dwell on abstract and avoid reality, many contemporary art devotees are getting further and further away from “individual freedom” when they strain every nerve of theirs, trying to secrete “Contemporary Art”. This is also “Abnormal”; however, taking in the situation that they live in, they can’t be more “Normal”.

Artists Yan Lei, Lin Yilin, Wang Yuyang, Lin Zaichun, currently all have an alternative identity: Professors of the School of Experimental Art, China Central Academy of Fine Arts, known as China’s most prestigious and renowned art academy. Artist Tang Song is an outsider who drifts along the mainstream, viewed as “the exception defining the rule.” Life and art are inseparable, same as the connection between teaching and creating, professors and students. At art academies in Mainland China, the relationship between these “professors” and “students” incubates all sorts of possibilities, in which some are “Abnormal”, or uncertain: from concept and techniques to exhibition and communication…

In a culture where people are passionate about differentiating between “Normal”and “Abnormal”, the identity of an “artist” and the so-called “art” have the right to be ambiguous and roundabout in some degree. This time, the seemingly normal Boers-li Gallery provided a formal platform, letting these abnormal behaviors or acts, in all apparent seriousness, to reveal themselves to the public. This is not normal, but why should it be? Are you normal?