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Pondering over China’s top contemporary artists
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THE exhibition “WE: A Community of Chinese Contemporary Artists,” which features more than 50 artworks spanning paintings, sculptures, installations, performance art and theater performances, is on display at the chi K11 Art Museum through May 2.
Organized by the K11 Art Foundation, the 65 participating artists are some of the highest-profile contemporary artists in China, including Zhang Enli, Liu Jianhua and Li Zhenhua.
Previously, the K11 Art Foundation worked on international projects in collaboration with Palais de Tokyo (Paris), Centre Georges Pompidou and Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), London.
Adrian Cheng, founder of the K11 Art Foundation, said that the foundation has been dedicated to discovering and showcasing outstanding works by a new generation of artists.
“The exhibiting artists creates between the two-dimensional and three-dimensional realm; abstraction and figuration; sound and video, in an attempt to break free from the boundary of tradition and pinpoint their respective contemporaries within the layers of art,” Cheng said.
When entering the exhibition, visitors encountered a series of bold, avant-garde pieces. For example, Zhou Xiaohu’s “Suspension wire a short moment” features a huge, yellow-hued palm made of wood that hangs in the air, as if the movement of the palm is entirely controlled by a cage made up from threads of nylon and steels.
Jiang Ye, the curator of the exhibition, explains, “The artist attempt to shift the viewers’ attention from the material itself and take the metaphor of material as the language.”
According to her, the exhibition is divided into three categories: material/context, phenomenon/circumstance, theater/performance.
Apparently, “WE” is not an exhibition to render a pleasant and sweet experience to the visitors. On the contrary, sometimes it stirs one’s visual sense with a repulsive feel. Such as artist Jin Shan’s work titled “Occupier,” which shows an arm that seemingly stretches through the wall as it holds a bloody human organ. Nearly all the works invite the visitors to ponder for some time and try to decipher its hidden meaning from the artist, though it is rather not an easy task. An on-site rent audio-video guide might be of help.
Besides some weekend lectures during the exhibition period, the K11 Art Foundation will also host a series of open-to-public interactive performances every Sunday afternoon at the chi K11 Art Museum. In “A Faceless Void,” an interactive project, the creators cast video images onto the face of a participant with subtle changes in his facial expression — then the face is being rendered featureless when seen from afar before it becomes a mask with incessantly-changing pattern. The fragmentation and re-combination of facial expressions constitutes a de-construction and analysis of the self.
Date: Through May 2, 10am-8pm (no entry after 7pm)
Venue: chi K11 Art Museum, B3, 300 Huaihai Rd M.
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