ShangART announces the group exhibition "In Harmony With The Way" opening on 18 August

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TEXT：CAFA ART INFO DATE： 2024.8.13

Outside View of ShangART WB Central.jpg

The Outside View of ShangART WB Central

ShanghART Gallery announces the opening of its new space "ShanghART WB Central" with the inaugural exhibition "In Harmony With The Way" on 18th August. Featuring the works of 7 artists/groups including Liu Yi, Lu Yu, Xu Chaofan & Ren Qingqi, Yao Qingmei, Zhang Meng, Zhang Wenxin, and Jasphy Zheng, the exhibition aims to dig into the artists' inner kinetic energy behind the “The Way” that their works appeared, bringing the focus back to the uniqueness of the individuality of the artists and to speculate the contemporariness of their works.
“In Harmony With The Way (Fan Chang He Dao) ” comes from Su Shi’s review of Liu Zongyuan’s poems, “The most appealing poems are those phrased unconventionally and yet achieved in harmony with its way (诗以奇趣为宗，反常合道为趣)”. As an expression strategy of classical Chinese poetry, “in harmony with the way” is employed in the exhibition as a method of contemporary art creation. By applying imagery or actions that rebel against the norm, the artists create contradictions between essence and phenomenon, or between content and form, so that works may appear “bizarre”, “illusory” or “absurd”. However, "harmony" will emerge when the audience suddenly realizes that “the way” adequately supports the artist's conception, which can lead to a dissimilar aesthetic experience.
About the artists:
Liu Yi was born in 1990 in Ningbo, China. She obtained her Master's degree from the China Academy of Fine Arts in 2016. Currently, she resides in Hangzhou. She utilizes various mediums such as animation, multimedia, and space installation to reflect her daily experiences and explore the potential of her works. Through her eclectic creations, audiences can delve into a distinct parallel world.
Her video works include such as "Morning and Dusk, “No More," "Burning," "When I Fall Asleep, My Dream Comes", "Origin of Species," "Chaos Theory," "A Travel Inward," "Into The Void," "A Crow Has Been Calling for a Whole Day," and "The Earthly Men." Her collaborative stage works include "Spring, River, Flower, Moon, Night" and "Idyllic Lives."
Yu Lu, born in Chengdu, Sichuan in 1997, currently works and resides in Shanghai and Chengdu. In 2019, she graduated from Pratt Institute with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) degree. Sojourned in cities such as New York, Vancouver, Seoul, and Shanghai, Lu gained firsthand insights into the lifestyles and societal perspectives shaped by various cultures and historical backgrounds. The word ‘epidemiology’ has its roots in the study of what happens to a population. Lu investigates societal diseases rooted within individuals by the methods of epidemiological studies. Utilizing mixed media, she attempts to elucidate the relevant causes, symptoms, complications, and treatments of these societal epidemics, particularly within the East Asian cultural context.
Xu Chaofan & Ren Qingqi
Xu Chaofan graduated from the Central Academy of Fine Arts, majoring in Art and Technology, and now works at the Beijing Academy of Agriculture and Forestry Sciences. She focuses on cross-field research on biology/ecology and tries to use biological media, devices, images, and other comprehensive materials to discuss the sustainable development of nature and society.
Ren Qingqi, a new media artist. Graduated from the Central Academy of Fine Arts with a master's degree in media art research, and worked as a horizontal scientific research assistant for robotics technology and art research at the Central Academy of Fine Arts. He focuses on the field of new media art, devotes himself to the research of art and technology, and uses programming and other technical means to create art, and the scope of creation covers interactive video installations, 3D digital art, sound and visual performances, etc.
Yao Qingmei (born in 1982 in Zhejiang) currently lives and works in Paris. Her practice focuses primarily on performance, video and related installation, incorporating elements of scenography, costumes, texts, lectures, games, sound poetry, and contemporary choreography. By intervening in specific spaces, she disrupts established rules, explores the symbols of everyday life, and examines how bodies nurtured by these symbols gain or lose power, breaking the boundaries between performance and its setting.
ZHANG Wenxin (b. 1989) is an artist now living and working in Hangzhou. She received her MFA from California College of the Arts (2013). She sees herself as a terrain builder. Her work is not to build landscapes and wonders but to simulate the intricate terrain between human and non-human minds. She uses images, films, installations, and soundscapes to bring forth perceptual journeys that guide the viewer to dive into the strata where mechanical time and magical time intertwine.
Meng Zhang (b. 1983, Tianjin, China) attended the Aufbaustudium at the Academy of Fine Arts Karlsruhe in Germany from 2016 - 2018 and now lives and works in Beijing, China, and Stuttgart, Germany. Meng Zhang's drawings with wax experiments are based on her dreams, memories, and mythologies, as well as moments and fragments from her everyday life. She tries to access her inner world and subconscious, illuminating the fragility of existence with the contingency between the fragments of daily life. Her drawing becomes a means to express where reality, the spirit, and the visual image meet. Furthermore, figures in her paintings are often emotionally troubled and detached or obscured and hidden within the landscapes, conveying a sense of fragility and strangeness. This is also tangible in the media she employs charcoal, pencil, hot wax, and paper, which are naturally brittle, slippery, and ephemeral.
Jasphy Zheng works collaboratively in installation, performative events, and pedagogical environments to create participatory, process-based projects. She gathers temporary collectives of different sizes and invites them to explore the visible and invisible relational structures in the constructed reality. Zheng received a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. Recent solo exhibitions include Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai, China (2020); CCA Kitakyushu, Kitakyushu, Japan (2020). Notable group exhibitions include Power Station of Art, Shanghai, China (2021); The Shed, NYC (2021); Para Site, Hong Kong (2021); TarraWarra Museum of Art, Melbourne, Australia (2021). She was the recipient of the RanRan Young Artist Award in 2022. In Shanghai, she hosts Square Meal, a loose gathering of artists, writers and curators on and around the topic of self-organized learning in art.