Zhang Enli
dal 13/1/2010 al 26/2/2010
Segnalato da
13/1/2010
Zhang Enli
Hauser & Wirth, London
Enli has created a new series of works that continue to invest life into the most common of signifiers from details of trees and lace curtains to bare mattresses and rubber tubing. Having grown up in the provincial town of Jilin in the north of China, his work continues to be marked by his experience of this transition, 20 years ago, to the sprawling metropolis of Shanghai.
Hauser & Wirth are pleased to announce Zhang Enli’s
first solo exhibition in London. Zhang Enli has created a
new series of works that continue to invest life into the
most common of signifiers from details of trees and lace
curtains to bare mattresses and rubber tubing.
Imbuing his subjects with human relevance, he has said ‘I
deal with reality in order to express something that goes beyond reality’ and as such he draws on the
viewer’s desires for the most simple aspects of existence. Painting with thin washes of pigment, which
often leave traces of turpentine dripping down the canvas, he achieves a sophistication and richness that
balances the apparent simplicity of his technique and subject matter.
Having grown up in the provincial town of Jilin in the north of China, his work continues to be strongly
marked by his experience of this transition, 20 years ago, to the sprawling metropolis of Shanghai. He
represents this extreme contrast to the smaller city he was accustomed to, not through the consumerist
preoccupation so common in contemporary Chinese painting coming from its major cities, but by looking
at the ordinary, unpretentious objects that surround him and the immigrants coming from the countryside
to Shanghai.
Zhang Enli’s paintings mark a strong departure
from the frenzied and more fashionable work of
his Chinese contemporaries – bearing no rela-
tion to ‘Political Pop’, ‘Kitsch Art’ or ‘Cynical
Realism’ that infuses much of the work com-
ing from his nation during the art boom of their
post-socialist society in the nineties. A painter’s
painter, Zhang Enli’s success has slowly infil-
trated the international art world as a result of
the continued positive reception of his work,
and more recently due to solo shows in 2009
at Ikon Gallery, curated by Jonathan Watkins,
and Kunsthalle Bern, curated by Philipe Pirotte.
As well as his show with Hauser & Wirth, he will
also be showing at Mingshen Contemporary Art
Museum in 2010.
For press enquiries please contact Catherine Mason at Calum Sutton PR on +
44 (0) 20 7183 3577 / catherine@suttonpr.com
or Hauser & Wirth on + 44 (0) 20 7399 9785 / press@hauserwith.com
Opening thurday, 14 january, 6 -8pm
Hauser & Wirth
196A Piccadilly, London
free admission