Durée: Li Yiwen Solo Exhibition | The Body Electric: Zhu Xiangmin Solo Exhibition
Opening: 2018.5.19 17:00
Lecture: 2018.5.19 15:00-17:00
Duration: 2018.5.20 - 2018.6.30
Leo Gallery Shanghai
Address: Ferguson Lane, 376 Wu Kang Road, Xuhui District, Shanghai 200031,China.
Artist Talk
Language: in Chinese
Duration: 2018.5.19 15:00-17:00
Guest Speakers:
Huang Du, Wang Che, Li Yiwen, Zhu Xiangmin
Theme of the Talk: Painting Generating
ENQUIRY & FOR RESERVATION
For Reservation, you may send
[Name+ Number of Applicants + email]
via Leo Gallery Wechat Official Account or email: shanghai@leogallery.com.cn
Durée: Li Yiwen Solo Exhibition
It is Leo Gallery's honour to hold in Shanghai the solo exhibition of emerging artist Li Yiwen - "Durée". It would be an integrated manifestation of Li Yiwen's recent thinkings and works in a new form.
The theme "Durée" is borrowed from French philosopher Henri Bergson, who drew a distinction between two kinds of time. There is "mathematical time" which occurs in the theories of the natural sciences that is measurable, and there is the "lived-time" or "durée" that we experience directly. However, Li Yiwen does not just follow Henri Bergson's concept, but instead incorporates the issue of "time in painting" into the creation and brings forward the "third kind of time" in painting - a time that is associated with perception, a time where all memory, intuition, and experience inosculate as a whole. Discovering words or terms from everyday life and reading, then deconstructing and reconstructing these words in combination with artistic perceiving and experiencing, and opening up a brand-new interpretation in the way of painting, is the main path of Li Yiwen's recent creations, as well as the source of the theme of this exhibition.
By using contemporary methods, Li Yiwen filters, selects and promotes the images. He puts the elements of the non-logic, fiction, movements and instincts into paintings, which goes beyond the traditional visual narrations and generates a new kind of meaning - a state of de-familiarization that is perceptible. Therefore, the space of imagination is continuously opened up and extended, which expands the possibilities of painting and establishes a new way of expression.
The Body Electric: Zhu Xiangmin Solo Exhibition
It is Leo Gallery's honour to hold in Shanghai the solo exhibition of emerging artist Zhu Xiangmin - "The Body Electric". It would be an integrated manifestation of Zhu Xiangmin's recent works in a new form.
Zhu Xiangmin's paintings are neither figurative paintings nor abstract paintings, but more direct and perceptual paintings of "image". He deconstructs or disembodies the brain as the centre of thinking, blurs out facial expressions, and dispels the position of human characters in the works. The images of human characters, either standing up, bending over, or twisted, extricate from the narrative meanings of figurative expression. These images express the artist's feelings, perceptions and logic. Although one of the works is titled as "My Likeness", it is actually against narrations and illustrations. The body in the images is certainly not the reflection of a physical body nor the artist himself, but the artist's thinking about the world and life, showing how reflections, fantasies, and ideals are combined. The emotions and tensions are not released by the characters in the works, but are created jointly by the images, movements and colours. Therefore, the images are vague, but full of power.
In this exhibition, Zhu Xiangmin expanded the dimensions and depth of painting. He not only integrates his understanding of Walt Whitman's poetry (Leaves of Grass), a collection of sounds, and the perception of daily life into his works, but also uses charcoal pencils in the creation of oil paintings to capture the feeling of fleetingness. Also, in order to expand the spatial tension of the paintings, the media, which is paper, is rubbed and folded. A three-dimensional effect is created by his combination of cotton cloth and paper.
The entire exhibition site will be a magnetic field that is fully charged with artistic electric charges.
