SGA Shanghai | Artist Introduction part 1

Tangle of Revolution and Political Soul 

靡菲斯特的舞步

Vernissage: 

Saturday, 13th November 2021 from 4pm

Exhibition:  

14th  November, 2021 – 16th January 2022

Venue:                        

SGA Three on the Bund, 3F, No. 3 Zhong Shan Dong Yi Road, Shanghai

Artists: 

Ensemble | Cao Yu | Chen Ronghui | Chen Ruofan | Dürer | Gao Lei Geng Yini | Gong Jian | He Yunchang | Hu Wei | Li Jingxiong | Li Nu | Liu Yefu | Liu Yu | Lu Boyu | Ma Wenting | Miao Miao | Ni Jun | Pu Yingwei | Song Yuanyuan | Tong Wenmin | Wang Jun | Wang Ziquan | Wu Di | Xiao Kegang |  Xu Zhen® | Yang Shen | Zhao Gang | Zhang Hui | Zhang Ruyi |  Zhao Yu | Zhuang Hui

Curator:

Lu Mingjun

Shanghai Space & Gallery Association (SGA) is very pleased to announce our major exhibition—Tangle of Revolution and Political Soul, opening on 13th November 2021, 4 pm, at Three on the Bund, Shanghai. The exhibition features the works of over 31 artists and collective, ranging from painting, photography, video, performance to site-specific sculpture and installation.

This exhibition is presented through five sections: The Book of Revelation: Descent into Darkness, Lightning and Serpent: Dialectics of Enlightenment, Robinson Crusoe’s  Dream: The Engulfment of Fear, Psyche and Firearms: Divine Violence, and finally Dancing with the Devil: The Daemon of Mephistopheles. With nonlinear narratives, each section acts as an index that invites us into a new spiritual-political world that transcends our desires.

▃

ARTISTS 

(part 1)

▎陈荣辉 CHEN RONGHUI

「迈耶柠檬」系列-档案 03 

Meyer Lemon series-Photo Archives 03

收藏级艺术微喷 Archival Giclee Print 

86 x 104 cm, 2021

Chen Ronghui graduated with a Master’s degree in Fine Arts from the Yale University School of Art in 2021 and is based in New York. 

His work focuses on different dimensions of China’s urbanization and industrialization. He spent almost ten years completing the trilogy of Chinese urbanized landscape photography: “Petrochemical China”, “ Runaway World,” and “Freezing Land”. After studying and living in the United States, he began to use photography, text, and video to rediscover hidden historical archives and narratives; to reconstruct the narrative relationship between East and West; to ruminate on Colonialism and orientalism in the midst of globalization.

▎陈若璠 Chen Ruofan

Unknown Sense III

布⾯油画 Oil on canvas

40.5 x 40.5 cm, 2020

Chen Ruofan (b.1996, Hubei, China) is now based in London. She holds an MFA degree at the Royal College of Art, London, and a BFA degree with honour from the School of Visual Arts, New York. 

Her recent work focuses on the change and flow of human emotions in the current technological age. Chen likes to capture the subtle emotions in life and express them through the combination of nature and technology, as the subtlety in work sometimes makes a significant impact on the audience.

▎龚剑 GONG JIAN

「下午去游泳 no.2」Go Swimming This Afternoon no. 2

纸上水彩 Watercolour on paper

56 x 76 cm , 2020

Gong Jian (b. 1978) he graduated from the Hubei Academy of Fine Arts in 2001 and now lives and works in Wuhan.

Gong Jian's works span diverse media, including painting, photography, and installation. Unlike conservative painters in the art market who pride themselves on their formulaic styles, Gong constantly explores new possibilities. From his early “bad paintings” to his attempts at conceptual abstraction to his revisit on pre-modernist and early modernist works, the artist seeks to shed light on a range of fundamental issues in painting. As a classic case in Chinese contemporary painting, Gong Jian has always been committed to establishing his path through social intervention and genre development, applying oil painting materials to a pre-socialist style of realist painting. Building on this foundation, the artist attempts to bring historical reflection and observation of geopolitics into his painting practice in recent years. “Event-image” is a primary pictorial resource and political motivation for Gong Jian's recent paintings. At the same time, he also applies various templates from classic works throughout art history for their technical language and visual materials. Gong Jian discovers a revolutionary seam between the two, thus casting or isolating a new path for his practice.

▎何云昌 HE YUNCHANG

「石头英国漫游记」 The Rock Tours Around Great Britain

行为、影像 Performance, video

51'30", 2006-2007

He Yunchung (b.1967 Yunnan, China) is an artist who has lived and worked in Beijing since 1999. He graduated from the Oil Painting Department of Yunnan Art Institute in 1991.

▎胡伟 HU WEI

「风下之乡」 Long Time Between Sunsets and Underground Waves

单频高清影像 (彩色 & 混音立体声) 

Single channel HD video (colour & mix-stereo)

53'20", 2020-2021 

Hu Wei, lives and works in Beijing, graduated from China Central Academy of Fine Art and obtained an MA at Dutch Art Institute in NL. 

He works in a variety of media, including film making, installation, printed images, performance and drawing. His interest often begins with the seemingly unrelated elements between text and visual culture. He represents their multi-layered, speculative connections on both political and formal level through research, translation, imagination, and integration, blurring the boundaries between reality and fiction. His practice explores the precarious relationship between labor, affect, and value judgments in different political and economic environments, technological conditions, and events. Combined with moving image and essayistic aesthetics, his work also addresses the dynamics, fragmentation, and synthetic alienation of human (individual and community), non-human, and material beings in our environment in the process of historical and natural transformation.

▎刘玗 LIU YU

「救赎山 」Salvation Mountain

单频道播放 (彩色 & 立体声) Single channel video (colour & stereo)

22'05", 2018

Liu Yu (b. 1985) currently living and working in Taipei. 

In 2014, she gradually developed a series of field studies in documentary nature as a working methodology for her artistic practice. From a human perspective, attributes of spaces change, and the fluid identity of objects within systems, Liu gives an account of humanity’s progress. A series of works are later created focusing on less visible communities marginalized by structural societal factors. The existence of these communities often reflects the intricacies of contemporary society. It offers a sample of a specific historical moment concerning a grander context. This boundary-breaking reexamination helps disrupt the strictly defined scientific methodologies and the science institution we are all too familiar with. 

▎马文婷 MA WENTING

「《坏东西》之七」 "Bad Stuff" no.7

布面油画 Oil on canvas 

90 x 90 cm，2021

Ma Wenting (b. 1983 Lanzhou, Gansu Province, China) currently works and lives in Chongqing. In 2001, she received Bachelor's Degree from Department of Chinese Painting, earned her 2015 Master's Degree from Department of Oil Painting at Sichuan Fine Arts Institute. She taught in Department of Oil Painting, Sichuan Fine Arts Institute since 2015.

▎倪军 NI JUN

「崂山别离」 Love of Laoshan

布面油画 Oil on canvas

60 x 50 cm, 2020

Ni Jun (b.1963, Tianjin) Currently lives and works in Beijing. Received his MFA degree from Rutgers University in New Jersey and settled in New York City in 1991. 

As an artist with philosophical speculations and theoretical accomplishments; Ni Jun's creations showcase both a complexity of humanity and the profound mystery in nature. He pays special attention to the spirituality of the natural scenery, the tradition of Chinese culture, and the elegant scenes of life. With his keen visual observation and leisurely brushstrokes, Ni Jun brings a touch of modernity into his strong personal-style of painterly paintings.

▎蒲英玮 PU YINGWEI

「红⾊武器宣誓视觉主权」 Red Weapons Swearing Visual Sovereignty

锦缎布面图像输出 Damask cloth image printing

305 x 300 cm, 2021

Pu Yingwei (b.1989) lives and works in Beijing, China. He received his BFA from Sichuan Fine art Institute, DNSEP (MFA with Félicitation du jury) from École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Lyon.

Pu Yingwei's work has been defined as an exercise in conceptual art with a strong utopian zeal. He is the artist who interprets the multiple media and identity narratives that he practices in the public sphere as a comprehensive mobilization. Taking personal history as an absolute starting point, with the exhibition, writing, design, lecturing, teaching, and other forms of work, he attempts to produce a kind of "meta-politics" that transcends grand topics such as race, nation, and ethics. Such politics is as complex and full of paradoxes as the reality we experience.

▎王俊 WANG JUN

「写生练习（器）no. 1  」Sketch Practice (vessel) no. 1

布面丙烯 Acrylic on canvas

212.5 x 179.5 cm, 2021

Wang Jun（b. 1974 Chongqing, China) currently lives and works in Chongqing, Guiyang. He graduated from the Department of printmaking of Sichuan Fine Art Institute with a Bachelor’s degree in 1999 and a Master’s degree in 2005.

▎张慧 ZHANG HUI

「清迈纪行」 Chiangmai Travel Notes

纸上水彩 Watercolour on paper 

38.5 x 26.5 cm, 2015

Zhang Hui (b.1967 Heilongjiang Province) lives and works in Beijing and teaches Stage Art at The Central Academy of Drama, where he graduated in 1991.

In his early explorations, Zhang mainly focused in the fields of performance and installation. He later began to explore and practice in the fields of multimedia and live theater. He was a key participant in the "Post-Sensibility" series of exhibitions in the late 1990s, and founded Yixiangju Group（异象聚小组) in 2004.

▎庄辉 ZHUANG HUI

「安西风口 」Anxi Wind Channel

红外远程彩信相机、数码打印 Remote infrared camera, digital prints 

30cm × 22.5cm × 124(幅 images), 2014

Zhuang Hui (b. 1963 Yumen Town, Gansu Province, China) left his hometown to study in Luoyang City at thirteen and started studying painting by himself. After graduating from high school in 1976, he became a worker at the state-run Luoyang Tractor Factory No. 1. In 1996, he moved to Beijing to become a freelance artist.

*end of part 1

Check out our Artists Part 2 this coming thursday, 11th November 2021;)