Contemporary art on show

Contemporary art on show

Coming From SongZhuang

——Selecting Work Show（Nov. 1 -30）

As the largest artist community in the world, SongZhuang is quite famous for the experimental base of contempory chinese art. If you come to SongZhuang without finding the right place, you can’t get a general idea of what SongZhuang is. The essense works selected from SongZhuang can help you have a better understanding of Songzhuang and Chinese contemporary art. The attending artist are LiuYaoXian,YanYu,Dalong,YangXiuBiao,WangQiang, SongHaiZeng, Pangyongjie, PiaoGuangXie, HaShiYou,MaYe, ZhangGe.

Feeding ——DaLong’s worry（Oct. 1 -31）

DaLong shows his deep concern about the combination of the East and West which is a long way in China from the pioneer SunYetSen to successer DengXiaoPing and caused so much debat and which still continues. Such contradition is naturally showed in DaLong’s work sometime in a sharp way and sometimes in a soft way. From these works we can easily feel his worry about westernizing and losing ourselves in one hand, and his humor in other hand. He is a serious thinker but like to make fun of those serious things while communicating with viewers.

Beautiful Scenery Surpassing Space and Time —— MaYe’s Sole Show （July 1 -29）

MaYe’s work mainly focus on ordinary people, he tries to combine the natural environment and human environment togather, showing a beauty that surpass time and space.
His “undressing” series doesn’t simplely mean geting off the QiPao( traditional chinese woman’s dress), showing the leisure, fashion and entertainment, but indicat throwing away the history and culture which hint crisis of our culture.

Expression of Current Living State

——HaShiYou’s Itching Series
（Sept 1 -30）

HaShiYou uses sratching people to show his metophor of our current living state which is exactly like: the more one scratches, the itcher one feels. In the fast changing China nowadays, the whole society pays too much concern on economic development, interesting seeking, and money become the most important thing and main judgement, that put people under a state of exhausted worrying and get a disturbing feelings which is difficult to discrible.

Portrait of Narcissist ——YanYu’s smoker series （May 28-June 30）

When YanYu in SongZhuang is mentioned, the image of smoker immediately appeared in your mind. His smokers are always with long neck, small eyes, obscure expression in their eyse, erogenous lips with a cigrette smoking curl upwards. Some smokers have apathetic , proude and loof expression, showing a distance from others and unspiiritual world and it’s hard to understand them; while others with expression of inebriety and enjoyment, totally indulging in blowing a cloud and showing a free and easy feeling and elegant.

It’s comfy to look at YanYu’s work which is rakish without complex but many things included inside. Several main parts such as erogenous lips,half opened eyes, nify tail, are really wonderful, especially the curl upwords smoke almost make people sniff it.He even includes some traditional things such as tail, short hair style and Chinese collar in his works but .make them look every fashionable. He depicts thoroughly the smoker’s temperament of not care abouting thing：what they only care about is to indulging them in enjoy life without any restriction, totally relaxed and comfortable.
YanYu’s work looks beautiful, womem are elegant, charming or blue while men are smart and cool. But what YanYu really mean by painting the smoker is the expressing of the spirit of rebelling to rule,seeking the freedom of personality, the voice not from main stream, in one word, a counteraction.

Coming from SongZhuang —— 6 people’s work Show （April30-May 27）

Spring is the time for new life, what could the artists in SongZhuang make after a long and cold winter? In the exhibition, you can see the new works from LiuYaoXian, LiuYuJun, YanYu, Dalong, Songhaizeng，YangXiuBiao from SongZhuang.

Made on Earth——ZhangGe’s Ceremic Works
（April.8-29）

ZhangGe’s work mainly focus on the four chinese icons: the shoe, the lock, the plate, and the hand, which is sculpted in porcelain and delicately and exquisitely hand painted with images from ancient drawings and the artist’s interpretations of the natural world. The uniqueness of this work comes from the creative mind of Zhang Ge and his ability to juxtapose the modern everyday icons of barcodes and numbers that identify and engage us, with the delicacy of his inspired drawings.
Zhang Ge tries to takes something from history and today, combining their stark contrast into a body of work that is beautiful, graceful, skillfully produced and genuine in its creativity. The work also poses a question for the viewer about how cultural icons of today will or will not be accepted as images of beauty when imposed on China’s future visual history.

Latest Experimental Work Show（Feb.28-March25）

SongZhuang is famous as the experimental base for contemporary art，where many professional artists gave up their comfortable city life and stable job more than 10 years ago and moved to countryside to seek their dream of freedom and art. They are ambitious and wish to make some valuable works to push the contemporary art forward and leave sth on art history. But on the other hand, they are satisfied with the pieceful country life,indulging themselves in building big house,raising dogs and tasting delicous food and good wine.
These works exhibited are quite new, look totally different,they may express some unusual ideas, or made by trying some new materials ?and new methods, fully showing their experimentation with ?strong visual shock.

Preview of Works Attending Miart, Italy （Jan.29-Feb.25）

After successsful showing Chinese contemporary art in Italy last year, this year Artist village gallery is invited to attend MiArt ,Italy( March 30-April 2) again. In order to let people in China have chance to see what we will show there, we hold this preview exhibition. The works exhibited are selected from some established and promising artists living in Beijing。These representative and high quality works including oil paintings, sculptures, and mixed medias try to pass people some information about Chinese contemporary art as much as possible.

Abiao’s New Work Show（Jan.6-26）

Abiao is famous for his unique mixed media works which are made of smashed paper sticking on canvas after firing. Unlike oil on canvas, his works look so multidimentional and vivid and it seems that the figures and ceremic will come out of the convas. His theme includes classical literature, mythological and historical feagures,old book and ceremics,etc.which reminds people of the far past China.But by using the quite modern method to express the old things, he mixes the past and present China naturally. Different from his generation who know little about the classic literature and philosophy because of the cultural revolution, Abiao spent a lot of time studying confucianism and book of changes while teaching in university, this nourishes a lot of his creation. So when you look at his works you can really feel something deep inside.

Affordable Contemporary Art Work （Dec. 1- 24）

Contemporary Chinese work is booming in the world, some famous artists’s works have been sold in an extremely high price which a lot of people can not afford to buy. By digging into it’s rich art resources, Artist village Gallery organizes this affordable exhibition for these who don’t want to spend a lot of money but still want to have some small good quality contemporary art works.

DaLong’s Mixed Media Work Show（Nov. 1- 30）

Dalong is famous for his unique creation. His represent works include installation “Chair series 1,2,3,4,”, “Violin”. He closed himself in his studio in SongZhuang in last 4 years, and finally he made some new works on mixed media.
He tried to paint on transparent material with double side, which shows the contrast of the past and current. One of his double-sided paintings describes a woman’s past (as a young red guard) and current (a middle aged and fashionable woman) life. Another double-sided painting shows the change of time by container of drinks.
He also tried to paint on the back side the canvas which some parts of the painting were painted on the frame. One of his works is “In the back of a 70s poster” and another one is “China in perspective-everything is in the process of right mistake.”
His works try to break the old chain and make people think in a different way.

Preview of the works for Tour show around Europe
（Octerber5- 31）

To promote China Contemporary Art around the world, Artist Village Gallery organized about 70 latest works from SongZhuang——the largest art community in the world and famous for China contemporary art——to have a tour show around Europe.
The selected famous artists include SunGuangHua(famous for his coffee mate and Red gossip series ) LiuYaoXian(famous for his water series) YanYu(famous for his smoker series) Dalong(famous for his anti-traditional painting and installation),LiuYi(famous for his bank of China series),ZhangXueHai(famous for his face series), Abiao(famous for his pottery series), PiaoGuangXie (famous for his faded lotus series)etc. Some of the artists are established artists from early YuanMingYuan some are artists lived in SongZhuang in 10 years, and some are emerging artists. The selected 70 essence works have different style and theme, but they all reflect the most concerning issues in current China and their high quality is the best choice for collectors.

LiuYaoXian &his Water Series（Sept.2- 25）

LiuYiaoXian has lived in SongZhuang for some years. Like most of the artists, he doesn’t speak a lot. So when his name is mentioned, not so many people are familiar with him, but when you talk about his work “water” series, almost everybody knows them.
There are many artists focus on water theme, but he is the one who can paint the spirit of the water. His water is pure , still and restrained, but you still can fully feel its life and energy through its sensitive ripple . The completely filled water on the canvas gives people an unlimited imagination and makes itself an unreachable character. By seeing the swimmer in the middle of the water, people can’t help concerning about his fortune and asking: where is he coming from and where is he going?

YanYu & his Smoker（June 26-July 30）

YanYu bought his house in SongZhuang many years ago and he actually live in songzhuang nearly 8 years. During this period, he built his houses, paint and sell his works, give birth to his son and enjoy the country life very much. He even begin to love to live in SongZhuang where although you can see garbage everywhere. By living such a long time in countryside, by his appearance, it’s really hard to tell him from the local farmers.
YanYu is famous for his smoker series, which mainly focus on the male and female smokers. In his work, you can see people with cigarette in their mouths by smoke interestingly rising from the cigarette, are always have an expression of indifference. Which you can feel that the aloof altitude towards life and the insistence to what he wants.

Us- ZhangXueHai’s Solo show （May 27-June25）

ZhangXueHai’s US(WE) series mainly focus on human faces which shows different expressions including horror, puzzle, doubt, helplessness, anxiety and expecting, which are the reflection of psychological state of human being under the natural and artificial disasters. He created these works during the period of American-Iraqi war and SAS. These disasters caused huge hurt to human psychology and make him to re-think about the life: why do people do like this, what should do about it?

Return to the Analects of Confucius

YangXiuBiao’s Solo Show
(May 1-28)

Yang XiuBiao’s work mainly focus on some traditional subjects such as pottery, pagoda and poem from Tang dynasty, which were inspired from the Analects of Confucianism and make people falling in meditation of peace and harmony. According YanngXiuBiao, a fine art teacher in a university, Chinese people got lost of themselves by running after westerners. We are taught by the west what is modern and what is post-modern, and we don’t know what next would be taught. Because of losing ourselves, Chinese people are destined to rove in politics, rove in economics and rove in art, of course.
To get back confidence, he wish to return to Analects of Confucius, which comes from the east environment and is suitable for oriental people. In Confucianism, there is no big happiness and big misery, no big love and big hatred, and everything is in peace and harmony. Confucianism seek good in inner heart, promote forgiving and containness to others,. In such a way, Chinese culture together with its elegant china were spreaded to all over the world.
Each time facing the analects of Confucius, he feels the wisdom, plainness, pureness, and gets a mixture feeling of love and hatred, happiness and misery.

4 persons’s Contemporary Work Show (Feb.25-March 12)

In the exhibition, SunGuangHua,YanYu,，SongHaiZeng, LiYi and Dalong will show their latest works which try to illuminate their different altitude toward life. SunGuangHua uses a in a funny way at political persons and event, YanYu use the image of smokers with an easy and unaffected manner to show his indifferent altitude, SongHaiZeng’s work directly express his desires without any hiding his love for worldly life, LiuYi’s work show his indulging in inner experience by just repeating simple symbol on canvas, Delong’s installation show a mixture of ancient and modern, west and east. From their work you can see the typical Chinese psychology inclination that truly reflect the current Chinese’s spiritual state from certain extent.

About Dog 2006 (Feb.12-25)

Dog is very important in the SongZhuang artists’s life. It seems that every artist in SongZhuang raises dogs. When you visit the artist‘s house, what you hear first is the dog’s shouting, and what you see first is not the artist but the running and shouting dog towards you. Dog is the topic they often talk about, even the dog’s marriage and birth becomes the reason for dining together. Because of dog’s marriage, many artists become relative.
Just they don’t like to paint small work; the artists also don’t like small dogs. What they raised are usually huge dogs, most of them are foreign blood dog except Tibet dog. So in Songzhuang, not so many foreigners living there, but you can see a lot of foreign dogs.
In the exhibition you can see different dogs in the artists’ eyes that have been given special meaning.

MingZhu’s Work Show (Dec .25-Jan.8)

Antique jars, vases and cupboard and bench look quite fashionable and modern with bright colour. From Limingzhu’s work you can see the obvious characteristic of Chinese contemporary art: modern, personal and Chinese. The way of painting is quite new, but the things painted are old and traditional with unique personality, it’s easy to tell they are from Liming. Born in 70, but with his talent and sensitive insight, he differentiates himself from many competitors and become one of the few emerging artists in SongZhuang whose work shows great potential for rising.

New Experienmental Show——LiuLiMin's Astronomical Art
(Dec.30-Jan.1)

Small work show for Christmas (Dec.1-24)

In the exhibition there would be a lot easy –to –carrying small works for those for want to prepare gift for their families and friends. Recently China contemporary art is highly recognized in international art market, so sending a original contemporary work from China’s largest art group SongZhuang as Christmas gift to your loves would be an unusual idea.

TianJing Promising Artists SongHaiZheng and RenZhenYu’s work Show (Oct. 25-Nov. 10)

Some Tianjin artists are very active in contemporary art and SongHaiZeng and RenZhenYu are 2 of them. They both were born after 70s and there is not so much heaviness in them than those were born in 60s. SongHaiZeng’s work mainly focus on small potatoes like himself who show their desires without any pretending and are always optimistic, unclouded and funny-like with expression smiling from ear to ear.. Everybody can understand and can not keep from laughing whenever seeing his works.

Different from SongHaiZeng, RenZhenYu’s work is abstract and a little bit meat-like. He tries to use easy way to express something heavy and wish to combine them together. He wants to show the process instead of the result. When you see his works you can feel the light-heart of the 70s born generation.

Gathering Around SongZhuang 2005

（Sept.20-Oct.20）

As the largest satellite exhibition for China international Art biennale, Gathering around SongZhuang 2005, with more than 500 latest works from SongZhuang——the largest art community in the world with more than 500 artists —— and other art communities around Beijing the exhibition would be a big gathering for China contemporary art, which will show the latest trend and development of Chinese contemporary art. You can see the works from established and emerging artists who are very active both internationally and domestically in art circle.
These unique works including installation, Vadio, photo, oil on canvas and sculpture, greatly demonstrate the variety of the art ecology and reflecting the latest trend of the largest and most active art group in China, to help people have a better understanding of China contemporary art.

Identity of Sino-France（Sept.3-12）

Who are you? Who am I? Who is he? Because of the economical globalization, it’s easy for people to move around the world and live in different countries, and plus the inequality in economy and the aggression of powerful culture to weak culture, it becomes more and more difficult to identify people. So people are often puzzled by their identity. To identity people means to analyze the existence of people in an unstable society The French and Chinese artists attending the exhibition tries to express their identity in different ways. In the reception there would be a performance about the theme by artists exchanging their clothes after a mad running.

DaLong’s Modern Installation（July 1-9）

A red chair with traditional dragon design on the back, a big McDonald logo in the sit and on which stand a male organ made of hamburger; a QiPao( typical Chinese dress) like platform, on which stand a violin with two strings just like a traditional Chinese music instrument –erhu, from the violin you can recognize a woman’s figure; from these installation, you can feel the humorous and talent design of Dalong- An artist living in SongZhuang. He tries to show the beauty of harmony by combing the tradition and modern, west and east, expressing the good wish of people born in 60s.

The True Existence

June 1-30

The exhibition mainly demonstrate the real existence of people, especially those who live in the low level of the society and far away from the main steam. They exist around us but were totally neglected. Although life is hard for them they still try to survive. The works exhibited show their happiness and sadness, their struggle and their puzzle.

New Work Show in Spring for SongZhuang

April 1-30

In the passed long and cold winter, the active artists in SongZhuang have created a lot wonderful works. The exhibition selects the essense works from 500 artists living in the largest group in the world for art collectors and museums. Differentiating from the style of mainstream, these works pay more attention to concept and express their deep concern to reality and human spirit, filling with SongZhuang’s vigor and tamelessness.

8 People’s New Work Show

March 1-31

Sun GuangHua, Yanyu, liuyi ,dalong zhangguolong,Liyun,ZhangXueHai, Piao GuangGuangXie and GuanYong will have a joint new work show for the spring season. Their style is quite different, but one thing is the same, that is they try to use their own language to reflect the contemporary social reality.

Zhang JianHua’s Realism Sculpture Show

March 1-31

Zhangjianhua, a graduate from the Central Academy of Fine Art, use his hometownese to be models for his sculpture series: a peasant’s son who had lived in a poor and small village, and his family had been peasants for generations, His realism sculpture mainly focus on the those small potatoes living in the poor village where his family had been peasants for generations. Among them there are schoolteacher, fool, pregnant woman, old woman. These people look ugly and dirty, living around us, and are always overlooked by the mainstream. Whenever you see his works you will have a shocked impression.

Works attending GuangZhou International Art Fair
Jan .1-31

To attend GuangZhou International Art Fair, Artist Village Gallery selected some works to represent SongZhuang’s image as a whole. These unique-styled works attracted many people’s eyeball and won high praise.