Academy's graduates make their mark in the art world
By Wang Jie |
March 24, 2012, Saturday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
SHANGHAI Theater Academy's stage design department is an unforgettable name in the country's contemporary art scene.
A cluster of big names including Cai Guoqiang, Li Shan and Chen Zhen who have gone on to capture international fame have studied there.
A joint exhibition featuring artworks by Shi Shaoping, Wang Xibo, Wang Weiyu, Liu Bolun and Gong Xinru, all graduates from the department in the mid-1990s, is taking place at a former Russian Orthodox church on Xinle Road through April 15.
These artists are talented in creating a stage effect regardless of whether they are exhibiting paintings, animation or installations.
"It seems our art does not cater to popular tastes," says Shi, who is also the curator of the exhibition. "We are focusing more on the dynamic visual impact for viewers although there is subtlety hidden in the works."
The venue, Shi's 500-square-meter studio, casts a dramatic, mysterious and pious aura over the works.
On entering the former church, everything is calm and quiet. With the din from outside fading, viewers are drawn by a ping-pong table with two big holes in the center and two gigantic clothes featuring tiger and leopard prints.
The highlight of the show is Shi's paintings depicting frog-like creatures and all manner of strange animals that seem to be moving, writhing, emerging, mutating, evolving and coalescing.
In the shafts of light that pour down from the windows they appear to move in translucent space against the white walls in the tranquil former church.
In his works there are splashes of green, red, pink, brown and yellow, suggesting traditional ink-wash paintings.
Wang Weiyu's animation "Circle Run" is a tribute to Eadweard J. Muybridge, an English photographer who used multiple cameras to capture the movement of animals and humans.
Through a series of drawings, Wang tries to remind viewers to capture those movements too fast for the human eye.
Wang Xibo explores darkness in his installation. The artist tries to wrap ordinary things in life with dark fabrics, ranging from dumplings to a tight fist.
"Today the living situation is challenged by disorder, and society is like a sunspot eruption," he says. "It forces me to think of a solution. But every time I move forward, I experience something irreconcilable. The bottom line of the human race has been penetrated again and again, and my works somehow are shoved to the dark side."
Meanwhile, Gong's paintings take a look at humanity through traffic signs. At first glance, his work looks to be renderings of different traffic signs, but up close, viewers will realize they are actually a variety of facial expressions.
"People are capable of delivering various feelings through different facial expressions," he says. "Every single person on the street - whether they are driving a car or riding a bicycle or walking - is just like cargo, entering and leaving cities in batches. I focused on their happiness, frustration and sadness. The expressions I created through these different traffic signs are the accumulation of my thinking during years on the road."
Date: Through April 15 (closed on Mondays), 10:30am-6pm
Address: 55 Xinle Rd
Tel: 5466-0596
A cluster of big names including Cai Guoqiang, Li Shan and Chen Zhen who have gone on to capture international fame have studied there.
A joint exhibition featuring artworks by Shi Shaoping, Wang Xibo, Wang Weiyu, Liu Bolun and Gong Xinru, all graduates from the department in the mid-1990s, is taking place at a former Russian Orthodox church on Xinle Road through April 15.
These artists are talented in creating a stage effect regardless of whether they are exhibiting paintings, animation or installations.
"It seems our art does not cater to popular tastes," says Shi, who is also the curator of the exhibition. "We are focusing more on the dynamic visual impact for viewers although there is subtlety hidden in the works."
The venue, Shi's 500-square-meter studio, casts a dramatic, mysterious and pious aura over the works.
On entering the former church, everything is calm and quiet. With the din from outside fading, viewers are drawn by a ping-pong table with two big holes in the center and two gigantic clothes featuring tiger and leopard prints.
The highlight of the show is Shi's paintings depicting frog-like creatures and all manner of strange animals that seem to be moving, writhing, emerging, mutating, evolving and coalescing.
In the shafts of light that pour down from the windows they appear to move in translucent space against the white walls in the tranquil former church.
In his works there are splashes of green, red, pink, brown and yellow, suggesting traditional ink-wash paintings.
Wang Weiyu's animation "Circle Run" is a tribute to Eadweard J. Muybridge, an English photographer who used multiple cameras to capture the movement of animals and humans.
Through a series of drawings, Wang tries to remind viewers to capture those movements too fast for the human eye.
Wang Xibo explores darkness in his installation. The artist tries to wrap ordinary things in life with dark fabrics, ranging from dumplings to a tight fist.
"Today the living situation is challenged by disorder, and society is like a sunspot eruption," he says. "It forces me to think of a solution. But every time I move forward, I experience something irreconcilable. The bottom line of the human race has been penetrated again and again, and my works somehow are shoved to the dark side."
Meanwhile, Gong's paintings take a look at humanity through traffic signs. At first glance, his work looks to be renderings of different traffic signs, but up close, viewers will realize they are actually a variety of facial expressions.
"People are capable of delivering various feelings through different facial expressions," he says. "Every single person on the street - whether they are driving a car or riding a bicycle or walking - is just like cargo, entering and leaving cities in batches. I focused on their happiness, frustration and sadness. The expressions I created through these different traffic signs are the accumulation of my thinking during years on the road."
Date: Through April 15 (closed on Mondays), 10:30am-6pm
Address: 55 Xinle Rd
Tel: 5466-0596
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