New Group Exhibition "Art as Living Organism" Opens on May 8th

MadeIn Gallery is pleased to present “Art as Living Organism”, a group exhibition featuring three artists Ge Hui, Song Kun and XU ZHEN®, opening on May 8th, 2021 and running through June 30th. This will be the gallery’s last exhibition at One Museum Place.

The exhibition revolves around the creation of figuration as well as the internal logic and driving force of its evolutional process. Based on their own experiences and different perspectives, Ge Hui, Song Kun and XU ZHEN® entitle the figures to grow in narration or develop in forms; and thereby extend to in-depth investigations on materials and artistic languages.

The human form is liberated from its prototype under Ge Hui’s repeated depictions. These indistinct, human-like limbs have trajectories that surpass physical experiences. Their liquid-like lines and shapes are endowed with the potential to deform, leaving the viewers an illusion of continuous growth and change -- they either distort, spread, or entangle, gradually becoming a species with blurred boundaries. Song Kun's recent paintings continue her exploration of the human body, subconsciousness and the status quo of human existence. By refining and integrating elements of traditional culture and various subcultures, Song’s works generate the future body of pan-culture. These recognizable human forms have light and thin skins, and their translucency comes from the concept of “oriental pure land” in Buddhism, which refers to the mutual cause and effect relationship between the spirit and the flesh. The mechanical parts embedded in the bodies and their dislocation indicate the current situation that mankind is disciplined by order and their existence is cyberized, allowing the human figures to cross between the reality and the surreal world. In XU ZHEN®’s “Communication” series, the well-known cartoon characters in pop culture intersect and melt into each other through computer calculation and transformation, becoming the symbol of the digital age, and hence creating a visual aesthetics of the new generation. Floating in the air, the dialog boxes of "Metal Language" series are like the murmuring of the figures in the gallery. These sentences are either echoes or responses to each other, just like the clamorous social media era today.

When artists create figures and drive their evolution, they also constantly promote the birth of new rules and languages. This "creation" implies great uncertainty, which endows art with intrinsic kinetic energy and affords it to evolve like a kind of organism, through the repeated depiction, the interdisciplinary interpretation, and the iteration of technology and culture. Its tentacles continue to spread and its territory continues to expand, ultimately correcting itself in the prolonged process of growth.

 About Ge Hui 

Ge Hui (b.1983, Jiangsu) currently lives and works in Shanghai. Ge Hui's paintings focus on the investigation of fitures and shapes. He excels at processing the figures of human body, animals, and plants as absolute form elements, and after disassemby, rearrangement and depiction, ultimately presenting a surreal landscape. Through the continual transfer and movement of perspective and focus, Ge Hui constructs the independent parts into a structural system with tension, and  establishes a new order in the picture-reading process that’s contrary to conventional experience,.

Recent exhibitionsinclude: “Paradise of desire”, Platform China, Beijing, 2018; “The Utmost Shyness”, Artron, Shanghai, 2015; “Awaiting with expectation”, Galerie Chenshia, Wuhan, 2014; “Faces Panorama”, Art Experience Gallery, Hong Kong, 2014; “Awaiting with expectation”, Soka Art, Copenhagen Denmark, 2013; “Continuing to Remove Energy”, Paris City Hall, Paris, France, 2012; “A World of Dreams”, Art Experience Gallery, Hong Kong, China, 2012; “The Fading and Reviving of Spring”, Shanghai Zhengda Art Gallery, Shanghai, China，2011；“RE.”, Shanghai Duolun Museum of Modern Art, Shanghai, China, 2011；“Panopticism and Transference - Discovering Possibilities”, Horizon Art Space, Shanghai, China，2010；“The Really Blue Sky”, Suzhou Art Gallery, Suzhou, China，2009. Recent group exhibitions include: “TongXi”, 3rd International Forum for Art Installations & Exhibition for Art Installations, Today Art Museum, Beijing, 2016; International Forum for Art Installations & Exhibition for Art Installations, Long. Museum, Shanghai,2014; “Walking Along with Chopin”, 21 Space, Shanghai, China,2014; “Annual Exhibition of Suzhou - The Poetic Jiangnan”, Yucun Art Gallery, Suzhou, China “Contemporary Art Exhibition - The Pleasure of Printing”, Toronto Art Gallery, Toronto, Canada, 2014; “A Tale of Two Cities” Shanghai Duolun Museum of Modern Art, Shanghai, China,2014; “Contemporary Art Exhibition of Self-Destiny - Out of the Land of Experience”, Hong Kong, 2014; “Chinese New Fresh Art Exhibition”, Wenxuan Art Gallery, Chengdu, China, 2013.

 About Song Kun 

Song Kun (b. 1977, Baotou, Inner Mongolia), received her BFA and MFA from the oil painting department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2002 and 2006. She currently lives and works in Beijing. Song's practice focuses on painting, while incorporating music live, video, installation and other media. She is hailed as one of the most promising female artists in China.

The honesty and emotional power in her work align her with “ the few artists who have stablished their own unique vocabularies of figurative painting in the contemporary art scene ”. In her works, she observes and captures the different figures and fleeting moments in reality and hyper-reality world, She gathers up the fragments of our time, at the same time makes the elements-restructuring. As a result, her works constitute a mythical, private spatiality that reflects the potential changes in China.

Song Kun’s works have always contained important concepts: "streaming narrative of consciousness" and “unconsciousness of the subconscious”. These are important features in her creation, in addition to this she uses aspects of Chinese oriental aesthetics. She never tries to provide any fixed symbols or concepts, but proposes a sample of China's independence at this stage for the proposition “How to Feel the Experience Cognition and Rich Emotions Given by Life”. Her firmness and self-confidence have enabled her paintings to borrow language from music, sound, and images to give painting a special narrative energy.

In recent years, Song Kun’s artistic creation has entered a new stage, experimentally integrating contemporary subcultures and religious elements with her creative system, forming a unique sample that is closer to her personal temperament.

Recent solo exhibitions include: “IMBODY-Feeling Real·Nude”, SSSSART, Shanghai, China, 2019; “SUKHAVATI。o 0”, Cc Foundation & Art Center, Shanghai, China, 2018; “ASURA SUKHAVATI”, Kiyoshi Art Space, Tokyo Japan, 2017; “ASURA SUKHAVATI”, Hive Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, China, 2017; “Visual Stream of Consciousness”, Minsheng Contemporary Art Museum, Shanghai, China, 2013; “A Thousand Kisses Deep”, UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, China, 2012; “Seeking the Recluse but not Meeting”, Walter Maciel Gallery, Los Angeles, USA, 2009; “Xi Jia – River Lethe”, Boers-Li Gallery, Beijing, China, 2008; “Song Kun”, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, USA, 2007; “It’s My Life”, Boers-Li Gallery, Beijing, China 2006; Recent Group Exhibitions include: “Cover”, Enclave Contemporary, Shenzhen, China, 2021; “Painting: Macro”, Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou, China, 2020; “Portrait of Time”, The Imperial Ancestral Temple Art Museum, Beijing, China, 2018; “SHE: International Women Artists Exhibition”, Long Museum, Shanghai, China, 2016; “Up-Youth”, Beijing Times Art Museum, Beijing, China, 2015; “Cosmos”, M21 Minsheng Contemporary Art Museum, Shanghai, China, 2014; “My Generation: Young Chinese Artists”, Tampa Museum of Art, Tampa, USA, 2014.

 About XU ZHEN® 

XU ZHEN®, founded by artist Xu Zhen in 2013, is the flagship art brand of MadeIn Company. Born in 1977, Xu Zhen is a leading Chinese artist and curator, and the founder of MadeIn Company. XU ZHEN® is committed to art creation and cutting-edge culture development. Through collecting and appreciating artworks and events produced by XU ZHEN®, users can enjoy spiritual aspirations and life experiences of the finest quality. 

Xu Zhen (Artist, Curator, MadeIn Company Founder, b. 1977, currently lives and works in Shanghai, China) has been considered as an iconic figure in Chinese contemporary art. In 2004, Xu won the prize for ‘Best Artist’ at the Chinese Contemporary Art Award. His practice covers various media such as installations, video, painting and performance, etc.

Xu Zhen has exhibited internationally, at museums and biennales, such as, Venice Biennale (2001, 2005), The Museum of Modern Art (New York, 2004), Mori Art Museum (Tokyo, 2005), MoMA PS1 (New York, 2006), Tate Liverpool (2007), Hayward Gallery (London, 2012), Lyon Biennial (2013), Armory Show (New York, 2014), Long Museum (Shanghai 2015), Al Riwaq Art Center (Qatar, 2016), Sydney Biennial (2016), Guggenheim Museum (New York, 2017), Sharjah Biennial (2019), Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles, 2019), National Gallery of Australia (Canberra, 2020), among others.

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