PRESS RELEASE

Art Basel Miami Beach
3-6 December 09
ShanghART, Stand H5

ShanghART Gallery is pleased to present a special project curated and conceptualized by MadeIn, a newly founded art collaborative initiated by Xu Zhen. On view will be an exquisite selection of works in a wide variety of media – installation, drawing, painting, and collage – representing a compellingly diversified perspective of contemporary Chinese art by, among others, Zhang Enli, Ding Yi, Zhou Tiehai, Sun Xun, and Shen Fan. The show comprises individual takes on history, politics, and the everyday; approaches informed as much by reality as by fiction.

Following MadeIn’s successful debut in NYC and Shanghai this autumn, the art agency now extends its curatorial practice by staging a never-seen-before series of mixed-media installations titled Spread 021 – Spread 025 (2009). Consisting of various materials and fabrics, these tactile works indicate a playful turn from painting in favor of the three-dimensional object. Here, the structures are fluid; Sometimes the contour of the depictions deliberately breaks up, morphing into sculpture in thick gaudy textures. The intentionally clichéd and controversial imagery of these works mimics satirical cartoons, referencing today’s politics, with special affinity to Mr. Obama and US foreign affairs. MadeIn combines a dazzling array of quotations and images to create visual cacophony while challenging and undermining any pretensions toward current politics. The use of stylized images borrowed from pop culture lends these works a surprising modesty. An air of childlike innocence is suggested – soft toy-like textures in bright colors – while referencing scenarios of economic and military crisis, thus declaring that creation and destruction are at work in the world in equal force.
Cartoon style takes on an even more biting edge in the series of works Metal Language (2009) that consist of ‘silver’ and ‘gold’ chains formed into speech bubbles which contain slogan-like one-liners. By appropriating and borrowing messages and rhetorical devices of mass media, public service announcements, and news reports these works prompt a critical approach to information, exemplified in the phenomenal quote “WE ARE THE MEDIA”, Metal Language I, No. 31 (2009). MadeIn uses the vocabulary of cartoon and caricature to deflate the omnipotent and present the atrocities of contemporary society in new light. Part of the power and attraction of their work comes from the transposition of popular imagery into a high-art context.

Like MadeIn, Zhou Tiehai’s unsettling yet amusing practice includes appropriating iconic imagery. Here, the artist actively subverts painterly craft through his refined air-brush techniques. His laconic trade mark – the camel – is represented in three new paintings The Great Dictator (2009), The Kid (2009), and Charles Chaplin – Modern Times (2007) illustrating Zhou Tiehai’s investigation into culture’s historical baggage at large.

Zhang Enli’s subtle depictions Tube II (2009) and Bulb (2009) in douche colors portray details from ordinary objects that are often neglected or downplayed in conventional painting. In his meticulous claim of ’the real’ it is the common, the unnoticed, the overlooked that is central to each painting. The ordinary objects, so often the subject of his paintings, make no claim to grandeur or immortality. His work does not aim to formulate the invisible. It does not deal with idealistic concepts, so often called upon to compensate physical engagement. Instead, Zhang Enli’s work depicts a present, failing to present itself, to all but the focused eye.

Ding Yi’s signature takes the form of a cross that is repeatedly and carefully constructed across surfaces. His new beautiful rhombi-shaped piece titled 2009-7 has been created by the layered intersection of vertical, horizontal and diagonal lines across the surface. With this minimalist visual rhetoric, painting is not about illusion and the representation of objects. Instead, Ding Yi explores an abstract aesthetic through the systematic repetition and direct visual representation of the cross. Viewed from a distance, everything gradually converges. But viewed up-close, the subtlety of lines and color are vibrantly present. The paintings simultaneously refer to themselves, as paintings per se, and the reality around them that has only been distilled into grids and check pattern.

Shen Fan's paintings come across as visually pure and harmonious compositions devoid of any extravagant or superfluous elements, the surface of the canvas becomes a field where color plays a key role. His images consist of monochromatic (and often primary) colors. His works are tactile compositions created using a palette knife, which makes for a restrictive work structure. The result is an ambiguous space in which shapes resembling geometric diagrams are then filled out with beautifully simple and repetitious ornamental figures. With rare radicalism, Shen Fan always accomplishes compositions full of discipline, rigor and perfection.

Sun Xun’s main oeuvre consists of a series of highly interrogative and impressive animated films, almost always held in black and white. In these, he explores how history is constructed and narrated. His compelling series of drawings 21G (2007) as well as his animated films such as Magician’s Lie, Mythos, and Requiem all feature the same character, namely a magician, easily recognizable and always dressed with a tall hat. In these drawings and films, the viewer follows the protagonist’s journey in search of another world, a better place to be. We witness the magician and his expedition through an apocalyptic fantasy world where the earth is set on fire in dramatic dream-like scenarios.

Brief Biographies
MadeIn Ltd. Is an art agency (initiated by conceptual artist Xu Zhen) based in Shanghai that specializes in staging art related projects. MadeIn’s curatorial practice debuted September 2009 with two extensive exhibitions featuring contemporary art from the Middle East at venues in New York City and Shanghai, respectively James Cohan Gallery and ShanghART.

Zhou Ziehai (1966) lives and works in Shanghai. Zhou Tiehai has exhibited extensively at acclaimed institutions such as The Whitney Museum of American Art (New York), Deichtorhallen (Hamburg), Kunsthal (Rotterdam), Shanghai Art Museum and Hamburger Bahnhof (Berlin) and the Mori Art Museum (Tokyo). Additionally, he participated in the 48th Venice Biennale, 5th Shanghai Biennale and 4th Gwangju Biennale.

Zhang Enli (1965) lives and works in Shanghai. Recent solo-exhibitions include shows at Kunsthalle Bern, Switzerland (2009), IKON Gallery, Birmingham, UK (2009), ShanghARt Gallery, H-Space (2008), and Hauser & Wirth, Zürich, Switzerland (2007).

Ding Yi (1962) lives and works in Shanghai. Recent solo-exhibitions include shows Galerie Karsten Greve, Cologne, Germany (2008), and Paris, France (2007), Museo d'Arte Moderna di Bologna, Bologna, Italy (2007). Ding Yi has exhibited widely, such as at the Venice Biennale (1993), Yokohama Triennial (2001) and Guangzhou Biennale (2002).

Shen Fan (1952) lives and works in Shanghai. Selected exhibitions include Out of Shanghai, Museum gegenstandsfreier Kunst, Otterndorf, Germany; Art Taipei 2009, Annual Theme Show, Taiwan, Taipei; Shanghai History in Making from 1979 till 2009, China, Shanghai (2009); Shanghai Kaleidoscope, Royal Ontario Museum (ROM), Toronto, Canada; Art 39 Basel 2008.

Sun Xun (1989) lives and works in Hangzhou. Recent solo exhibitions include Max Protetch Gallery, New York, USA (2009), CalArts, Los Angeles, USA (2009), Colchester, University of Essex Gallery,UK (2009), The Drawing Center, NY, USA (2008), Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, USA (2008), Platform China project space, Beijing (2008).


For further information and image material, please contact:
Helen@shanghartgallery.com

ShanghART Gallery
www.shanghartgallery.com

50 Moganshan Rd., Bldg 16
Shanghai, China 200060
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