Leo Gallery Shanghai is honoured to present the new exhibition “Superstructure” in March 2019. Curated by the renowned art critic and curator Bao Dong, the exhibition presents the works of nine artists including Cai Lei, Hou Yong, Huang Yishan, Li Yiwen, Liu Yazhou, Wang Peiyong, Wu Ding, Xu Zhe and Zhou Qinshan.
The curator Bao Dong states that “As the most familiar philosophical term for contemporary Chinese, the ‘superstructure’ and the corresponding ‘base’ have always been an architectural metaphor. In this exhibition, by borrowing and extending this architectural metaphor, we present it through a series of architecture-related works.”
Giving birth to installationized sculptures, Cai Lei uses life-related daily objects, reconstructs the authentic materials and oscillates between the second and third dimension, by altering the spatial relationship and practical logic of life-related daily objects. Cai Lei utilises visual illusion to modify people's viewing experience, in order to construct a “reality” of realistic painting as well as a “reality” of philosophical realism.
Hou Yong's works are derived from the surface contours of buildings and objects. By deconstructing and reassembling contour and coloration, he seeks a visual logic that can act as a link between reality and the ideal. The artist breaks apart the spatial relationships within realistic scenes and explores how to reconstruct them into a new order on the canvas. He employs painterly techniques to build a spatial structure within the picture plane, playing with ubiquitous formal elements and rules.
The spatial structure, narrative logic and speculation on materials are the major subjects that Huang Yishan continues to focus and explore in his works. At each stage, artist let these subjects carry different functions on the canvases. This kind of reflection on integrity and authenticity is constantly being split and combined in his work.
In this exhibition, Li Yiwen is also to present his artistic theme and creation which extends from his previous solo exhibition “Durée” in 2018. 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 visual meaning.
Liu Yazhou's creations are aware of the body and pay attention to the way in which ordinary things exist. Through creating a link between art and daily life, his works keep wavering between “existence” and “absence”, which present the sensibility of time in the process and the inherent tension of objects.
Wang Peiyong makes the basic content of fine arts education of drawing to develop into a kind of expressive and capacity of artistic language, he chose the big, artificial but no one scenario as subjects, let the long term become the character of drawing that contain the unique objective sense of calm and time to put into the space theme, let the audience realized a kind of energy came from the painting.
Wu Ding's recent works focus on the “order” formed in time and space. He seeks to explore the “inner order” hidden in the world, which is probably the only supporting point to interpret the world, that can only be perceived but cannot be described by language. By choosing symbolic objects, he draws away the meaning of the element itself and offers it a deep artistic conception.
Xu Zhe mixes his work, the sources of experience that dominate his work, as well as his personal improvisasion in his creation. In the process of borrowing and reshaping existing models, architecture and texts, he re-directs his own self, and also switches the ways of seeing and comprehending objects.
The psychological and conscious level of self-organization is the focus of Zhou Qinshan's continuous creation. Just like her work "Soul Theater: Pythagoras City" originates from "The Assumption of Cemetery + Theater", her inspiration is derived from purposeless calculation. Since 2012, her focus has turned to individual consciousness in social relationships, as she is more concerned with the perceptual and multi-layered horizons in her works, which has made her creative dimension change from the inside to the outside.
The exhibition"Superstructure"will last from March 10, 2019 to April 13, 2019.
