|
Chinese Contemporary was one of the first Western galleries to introduce Chinese contemporary art to a Western audience and, over the past ten years, we have helped to launch Chinese contemporary art as well as many Chinese artists onto the global stage. Due to the recent and quick evolution of Chinese contemporary art, the gallery and our artists have achieved much commercial success in this way. |
 |
Collage – Li Juan
Chinese Contemporary was one of the first Western galleries to introduce Chinese contemporary art to a Western audience and, over the past ten years, we have helped to launch Chinese contemporary art as well as many Chinese artists onto the global stage. Due to the recent and quick evolution of Chinese contemporary art, the gallery and our artists have achieved much commercial success in this way.
Through our contact and discussions with Chinese artists, it became clear that Chinese social life was rapidly changing and that these changes were reflected within our artists’ works. Thus, the gallery’s own professional and commercial activities were deeply influenced by the changes occurring within Chinese society.
As the manager of Chinese Contemporary’s Beijing space, I believe that, while achieving professional and commercial success, we must also necessarily pay close attention to the international as well as to the local social influences which deeply impact art.
Art is, undeniably, one of the most talked about subjects in Beijing, and architecture is the gauge with which Beijing, as a city, measures its rapid economic progress. Because these two fields reflect the city’s pulse, I was curious what artistic image would result from the convergence of art and architecture.
After talking with the owner and director of the gallery, Ludovic Bois, we decided to invite four architects from amongst the artists with which we are the most familiar to participate in this exhibition. These four artists each had architectural or related backgrounds, they had already demonstrated to us their artistic abilities and they caught our attention with their enthusiasm and creativity. We curated this “non-commercial, non-artistic art exhibition” as an expression of gratitude for the previous ten years’ worth of artistic production. Most importantly, this exhibition would introduce the gallery’s debt to the social roots of artistic creation.
These four artists are not visual artists by occupation, but are peerless representatives of architecture and its related fields. Ma Yansong is a Yale University, School of Architecture graduate who has spent many years in America. Wang Yonggang is the director of a design firm and eagerly participates in this kind of contemporary art exhibition. Yang Haihua is a former member of a Wa minority performance group and who has become a real estate advertiser. Zhou Rong is a professor at the most prestigious architecture school in China.
With this show, the gallery doesn’t hope to explore contemporary art arising out of these artists’ architectural experience. Rather, we want to present the compelling possibility that art can emerge from an architecture that is rooted in art.
