OCAT Youth Project: Three Solo Shows Opening September 20 in Shenzhen

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TEXT：Sue Wang DATE： 2014.9.17

00 Poster of OCAT Youth Project Three Solo Shows

The OCAT Youth Project, begun in 2010, is a program at the OCT Contemporary Art Terminal that focuses on young practitioners and provides a platform for leading ideas and work. The program invites dynamic artists, curators and critics to present their latest work, ideas and imaginings, and provides a professional public context for phases of work, even unfinished yet promising work, so that the creators can exhibit and look back on their own creations outside of their studios and computers.

The OCAT Youth Project turns its focus on young art workers, curators and researchers who possess a spirit of independent thought, presenting multi-perspective research, diverse values and working methods, and expressing them through the multiple dimensions of exhibition, discussion and publication. The 2014 OCAT Youth Project has invited artists Liang Yue, Qin Jin and Wang Shang to hold three separate solo exhibitions within the OCAT Shenzhen exhibition halls A and B. The three solo exhibitions are, respectively, Easy Going, on Shanghai artist Liang Yue; For Those Who Are Superstitious, Sacrifice Is Real, on Guangzhou artist Qin Jin; and Mr. Chicxulub, on Beijing artist Wang Shang.

The works presented in Liang Yue’s solo exhibition, Easy Going, will escape from the logic of categorization and arrangement based on such criteria as date and subject matter. The artist has selected past and recent works and arranged them together so that they provide mutual context for each other. The artist’s focus is on the experience of the viewer in the exhibition, as well as how their mindsets shift as they leave the exhibition. Liang Yue’s works stand up on the “everyday,” constantly drawing material from trends, discovering, excavating and capturing oft-overlooked everyday human behaviors. They extend this focus on the urban everyday into a gaze on the perpetual spectacle of nature, an account and pursuit of spontaneous circumstances and ideas. In Liang Yue’s video works, the artist is constantly simplifying and selecting from different photography and editing techniques, casting doubt on the so called “meaning and value” of art, and treating meaninglessness as the ultimate meaning in her creations.

In her solo exhibition For Those Who Are Superstitious, Sacrifice Is Real, Qin Jin presents video and performance installations she created between 2013 and 2014. The presentation of these works will revolve around Jean-François Millet’s The Angelus, discussing art as faith. “Its god-like light, illuminating the endless filth, decay and indecision. The truth exists in every long-winded statement, every breath of foul air, every trivial detail. It is in an unimportant place. This place can be any place. This conversion can begin anywhere. You can give yourself over at any time.”

Wang Shang’s creations touch on many different mediums, from painting to video, sculpture and jewelry. His solo exhibition at OCAT, Mr. Chicxulub, brings together many of his sculpture works from the past two years. Chicxulub is the name of the meteor that led to the extinction of the dinosaurs 60 million years ago. The exhibition takes this great historical event as the starting point for its ideas, while the different colors of the walls in the exhibition space come from Wang Shang’s everyday life, being the colors of his studio. Wandering through natural history, personal events, religious faith and human civilization, the works in this exhibition examine the three crucial and closely related questions of disaster, fate and faith from multiple angles that are sometimes sunny, sometimes humorous and sometimes serious.

The OCT Contemporary Art Terminal (OCAT) was founded in 2005, and was officially elevated to the level of a nationwide contemporary art museum group in April 2012. The museum’s headquarters is located in Shenzhen, with museum venues across the country, including OCAT Shenzhen, the OCT Art and Design Gallery, OCAT Shanghai, OCAT Xian, OCAT Beijing and OCAT Wuhan. As the group’s first facility, OCAT Shenzhen has long been devoted to researching the theory and practice of Chinese and international contemporary art. Since its inception, the museum’s curatorial, research and collecting work has focused on creations and ideas in art. Three Solo Exhibitions is the sixth installment of the OCAT Youth Project.

About the Artists

Liang Yue

Liang Yue was born in 1979 in Shanghai, graduated from the Shanghai University Academy of Fine Arts in 2001, and currently lives and works in Shanghai. Her recent exhibitions include Liang Yue: the Quiet Rooms, ShanghART H Space, 2013; A Lecture Upon the Shadow, Open Eye Gallery, 2012; Numerous: Liang Yue Solo Exhibition, Shanghai, 2011; Move on Asia: the End of Video Art, Casa-Asia Barcelona, 2011; Shanghai Candid: Women in Motion, San Francisco Arts Commission, 2010; China Power Station: Part IV, Pinacoteca Agnelli, 2010; and Shanghai Kino, Kunsthalle Bern, 2009.

Qin Jin

Qin Jin was born in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, in 1976, and lives in Guangzhou, where she is a lecturer at the oil painting department of the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts. Her range of artistic mediums is very broad, touching on painting, photography, installation, performance and video. Her solo exhibitions include Delete, Guangdong Museum of Art, 2006; Getting to Know You Again, Magician Space, 2009; and Close Your Eyes, Dear, Sabaki Space, 2012. Exhibition projects include We Are the Victim of Blessedness, a joint exhibition with Zhang Chunyang at the Shenzhen OCT Contemporary Art Terminal, 2006; OlharesInteriores: Documentaries of Chinese Performance Art, at the Macao Museum of Art, 2008; and Hong Kong and Macao, He Xiangning Art Museum, 2008.

Wang Shang

Wang Shang was born in Beijing in 1984, and currently lives and works in Beijing. He graduated from Goldsmiths College and the Royal College of Art. Upon graduation, he took a course at the Gemological Institute of America, and began working in the gem industry. During this process, which he refers to as “life practice,” he used the knowledge and experience he gained to gradually clarify the ideas that would define his later art. His paintings, installations, sculptures and videos discuss natural history from various perspectives, and through this, examine doubts about the relationship between human civilization and nature. His works have been exhibited at the Ullens Centre for Contemporary Art (2011) and the Shenzhen OCT Contemporary Art Terminal.

About the exhibitions

Opening: Saturday, September 20, 2014, 17:30

Dates: September 20 - November 2, 2014

Location: OCT Contemporary Art Terminal (OCAT) Shenzhen

Address: OCT Loft, Enping Road, OCT, Nanshan District, Shenzhen

Organizer: OCAT Shenzhen

Support: Shenzhen Overseas Chinese Town Corporation Ltd.

OCAT Shenzhen

Address: F2 Building, Enping Road, OCT, Nanshan District, Shenzhen, China

Opening Hours: Tuesday to Sunday (Monday Closed), 10:00-17:30

Website: www.ocat.org.cn

Wechat: OCATShenzhen