Through photographic and pictorial images, and video language, four young artists focus on their artistic gestures prorities in visualizing the intimate process that moves from Necessity and turns it into Realization, revealing under the surface a common restlessness.
4 Young Chinese Artists
If the artistic deed is a seeking act in itself, then it is an expressive and
yet exclusive attempt which discards the linguistic referent choosing the
figurative means of it. What if an equation is drawn between representative
object and displaying subject? This produces a kaleidoscopic effect where
seeking becomes the subject matter of the work in itself, and where trueness
and reliability are approximate segments of an abstract narration questioning
the reason for existence of both the searcher and the real ultimate goal of
his/her deed.
Through photographic and pictorial images, and video language, four young
artists focus on their artistic gestures prorities in visualizing the intimate
process that moves from Necessity and turns it into Realization, revealing
under the surface a common restlessness.
These four artists come from different areas outside of Beijing (Guan Shi, Xia
Xing and Xia Jianguo are from Xin Jiang, while Zhang Dongliang is from Henan
province) but are now living in the Binhe artist village in Tongxian located
just outside the capital. Zhang Dongliang, inspired by Jimao xin (The Urgent
Letter) - a traditional nursery tale very popular in China- paraphrases
thorough the pictorial language the poetics of journey as research, by
arranging an order to aims and purposes of existence. What You are Searching
For is series of nine oil paintings illustrating a tiny-scale character in
planes and single-coloured backgrounds apparently looking for something, where
his strenuous endeavours catch curiosity and attention.
Guan Shi and Xia Xin
make use of the photograophic medium in order to give expression to the
misleading images of everyday life and the necessity of carving out of it a
personal dominion of objects, of clear as well as consistent realities; 1999,
2000, 2001 and 2002 are part of a work in progress, a sort of performance
piece ad libitum where Guan Shi records a diary of 365 snapshots, 365 proof of
being.
Xia Xing’s Game, by means of spray painting, vexes upon the position of
reality as a fading concept relocated in virtual scenarios taken from
electronic frames.
Xia Jianguo, the only video artist in the show, is looking for a sorrowful
memory of his early childhood, and for a psychological liberation by means of
it; the violence of the projected images and the pressure they put on the
viewer become vehicle not only of the personal cathartic process which the
artist aims to while strolling in his allucinating gait (Illusive Dream), but
also offers to the audience an instrument of muse for meditating on the
virulence which the striving for individual desires fulfilment can exert on
other people.
The works here presented challenge to introspective confrontation and
innermost questioning, they arise an interaction between Self and personal
truths, in drawing a neat yet authentic path, acknowledging objective reality
as a source for exploration leading us to cognition and inner life.
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