 Comerchina:Huang Rui solo Show 2009-5-23 - 2009-6-22 |
Chinese Contemporary Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of Huang Rui’s solo exhibitionComerchina. The artist has prepared mixed-media works that will be on display May 23 – June 22, 2009 at Chinese Contemporary’s Beijing gallery in Factory 798. The opening will be May 23, 2009 at 3 pm and the artist will be present. A catalogue has been produced in conjunction with this exhibition. Highly regarded for his elaborate installations and contemplative performance art, Huang Rui is one of the founding members of the Stars Group of 1979 and a seminal figure of the Dashanzi Factory 798 Art District...MORE>>>> |
 Expressions: Group Show 2009-2-28 - 2009-3-21 |
Chinese Contemporary Beijing is pleased to announce Expressions: Group Show, including works by artists Fu Lei, Han Yajuan, the Luo Brothers, Mao Yan, Wang Ke and Zhou Nan. The exhibition will run from February 28 – March 21, 2009. The work in Expressions consists of sculpture, works on paper and canvas paintings by a stylistically wide range of artists who look to understand and communicate both the contemporary Chinese experience and the universality of human emotions. Regardless of the background of the artists or the composition of their work, the representation of the figures in each artwork lends voice to the artist’s fascination with and desire to convey expression...MORE>>>> |
 LOOK AT THIS! 2008-12-20 - 2009-2-13 |
Chinese Contemporary Beijing is pleased to announce its upcoming exhibition LOOK AT THIS!, featuring works from the artists Huang Rui, Lu Hao, Sheng Qi, Wu Junyong, Xue Song, and Zhang Dali. The exhibition will run from December 20, 2008 to February 13, 2009. LOOK AT THIS! is composed of works that explore China’s contemporary climate through the eyes of six diverse artists who highlight issues they deem worthy of discussion. Each of the exhibited works contains the medium of paper; however, it is not the medium but rather the deft and unique execution of the works which lends power to their commentary...MORE>>>> |
 Zhu Ming Solo Exhibition 2008-10-18 - 2008-11-26 |
Chinese Contemporary is pleased to announce a solo exhibition of Zhu Ming’s photography, sculpture and oil paintings that will be on display October 18 – November 26, 2008 at Chinese Contemporary’s Beijing gallery in Factory 798. The opening will be October 18, 2008 at 3 pm and the artist will be present. A member of the famous East Village (Dong Cun) artists, Zhu Ming is considered one of the original performance artists of the 1990s who shattered the ingrained notion in China of the body as taboo. Marginalized and even jailed by the Chinese government during the early years of his production, Zhu Ming has cast his naked body in a variety of raw, experimental Bubble and Luminescent Man performances that hint at the fragility and ultimately singular experience of human existence. The Bubbles Series serve as a reference to the Chinese traditional concept of qi (air, gas) and. . . MORE>>>> |
 Fashion Disconnect - Normal Life 2008-8-30 - 2008-10-15 |
Chinese Contemporary Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of Zhao Bo’s solo exhibition Fashion Disconnect - Normal Life. The artist has prepared fifteen new paintings that will be on display 30 August – 15 October 2008 at Chinese Contemporary’s Beijing gallery in Factory 798. The opening will be 30 August 2008 at 3 pm and the artist will be present. A catalogue has been produced in conjunction with this exhibition. A graduate of the Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts and a part of the “New Realists”, Zhao Bo demonstrates extraordinary talent in his interpretation of traditional realism within a contemporary stage, namely that of the modern Chinese city. Unlike the political motivations of earlier avant-garde artists, New Realists came to age in an era of relative political stability, when one of the most pressing dilemmas is the forced reconciliation of the past and the neon-lit future.. . . MORE>>>> |
 August Group Show 2008-8-1 - 2008-8-27 |
Chinese Contemporary Gallery is pleased to announce its August Group Show 2008 at its Beijing space in Factory 798 featuring works by the artists Huang Rui, Liu Ye, Ma Liuming, Shi Guorui, Wu Junyong, Xue Song, Zhang Dali, Zhou Chunya and Zhu Ming. MORE>>>> |
 You Must Listen to Me 2008-6-28 - 2008-7-30 |
Chinese Contemporary Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of You Must Listen to Me, an exhibition of new works by Wang Ke. The artist has prepared fifteen new paintings that will be on display 28 June – 30 July 2008 at Chinese Contemporary’s Beijing gallery in Factory 798. There will be an opening held on 28 June 2008, 3 pm where the artist will be present. A graduate of the China Academy of Fine Art in Hangzhou, Wang Ke is one of the most talented stars of the Cartoon Generation. Through her quest for individual identity, Wang Ke chooses to paint oversized, stylized heads, which she claims are anthropomorphic interpretations of her own facial features. Employing cartoon imagery as a vehicle for self-reflection. . . MORE>>>> |
 Group Show 2008-5-1 - 2008-6-15 |
Chinese Contemporary is pleased to show works by the artists Huang Rui, Shi Guorui, Wu Junyong, Xue Song, and Zhou Chunya. MORE>>>> |
 Group Show 2008-3-1 - 2008-4-15 |
For its first Group Show in the Year of the Rat Chinese Contemporary is pleased to show works by the artists Zhang Dali, Lin Tianmiao, the Luo Brothers, Xue Song, Huang Yan, Wu Junyong, Li Li and Shi Guorui. With these artists’ broad range of mediums and methods, Chinese Contemporary looks to greet the New Year with a fresh look at the dynamism and breadth of China’s contemporary art. Zhang Dali’s emotionally charged AK-47 portraits of migrant workers overlaid with the words AK-47 aim to give voice to the masses of Chinese... MORE>>>> |
 Uncanny Perceptions 2007-12-1 - 2007-2-28 |
Chinese Contemporary is pleased to announce the opening of Uncanny Perceptions, a solo exhibition for camera obscura photographer Shi Guorui. Following successful solo shows at the de Young Foundation in San Francisco and at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, Chinese Contemporary is giving the artist simultaneous solo exhibitions in their Beijing and New York galleries. The exhibition is comprised of new camera obscura works completed in Shenzhen, Beijing, San Francisco and Shanghai, which highlight the artist’s mastery of technique. The exhibition runs from 1 December 2007 – 28 February 2008 in both Beijing and New York. A catalogue highlighting the artist’s new and old works will also be produced. Since his transformation of a watchtower on the Great Wall of China into a pin-hole camera in 2004, Shi Guorui has continuously produced richly detailed photographs of landscapes and cityscapes...MORE>>>> |
 Big Face 2007-10-28 - 2007-11-28 |
Chinese Contemporary is pleased announce the opening of Big Face, an exhibition of new works by Wang Ke. This exhibition is the first solo show for the artist and runs from 28 October to 28 November at Chinese Contemporary, Beijing. A short catalogue of the artist’s work has been produced in conjunction with the exhibition. A recent graduate from the China Academy of Fine Art in Hangzhou, Wang Ke is one of the most promising young voices to emerge from the academy. The artist’s canvases are dominated by large, cartoonish heads...MORE>>>> |
 Individual Eras Exhibition 2007-9-1 - 2007-10-14 |
Chinese Contemporary Gallery is pleased to present new works by Huang Rui and Zhang Dali in its September/October 2007 exhibition, Individual Eras. Works in this exhibition grapple with the concept of how the individual functions within different socio-political eras as well as how the individual as artist, intellectual, friend and citizen responds and functions within the limitations of and the parameters set by the state. Huang Rui is an artist whose works often touch upon politically sensitive and deeply unsettling political realities within contemporary China. In particular, the artist is fascinated by the ways in which thought, once turned into written text, can be manipulated by individuals, institutions and governments...MORE>>>> |
 Zhang Xiaogang 2007-9-22 - 2008-1-13 |
Chinese Contemporary and the Sara Hilden Art Museum of Tampere, Finland are pleased to announce the opening of Zhang Xiaogang. This exhibition is the artist's first solo exhibition in a public European museum and is a result of the efforts of the artist, of the gallery and of Sara Hilden's curatorial staff. New and old works will be shown...MORE>>>> |
 Gallery Artists Summer Exhibition 2007-7-5 - 2007-7-30 |
For its Gallery Artists Summer Exhibition, Chinese Contemporary is pleased to show works by Huang Rui, Huang Yan, Wu Jianjun, Xue Song, Zhao Bo and Zhang Dali. Huang Rui’s work, China/Chai-na, discusses the destruction and demolition of old China in the face of the country’s rapid modernization. China/Chai-na is a clever play the homonym of the country’s English name, China, and the Chinese words for “destroy there,” or “chai-na.” Zhao Bo’s work, Our Happy Life, captures the spontaneity, energy and chaos of contemporary Chinese cities. In his cityscapes, he simultaneously... MORE>>>> |
 Zhu Ming Solo Exhibition 2007-4-28 - 2007-6-30 |
Zhu Ming is one the most important performance artists of the avant-garde. From his first appearance in the seminal group work by Beijing East Village artists, “To Add a Meter to an Anonymous Mountain,” Zhu Ming has created performance works that leave an indelible impression upon the viewer and have left a deep impression upon the landscape of Chinese contemporary art. Whether seen in the flesh or in photographs, Zhu Ming’s performances, through his raw display of his naked body, are controversial works that call attention to the vulnerability and aloneness of all humankind. During the first decade of his performances, his works were banned from public display in Mainland China because it was believed that Zhu Ming’s works were polluting to the general public. As a result, the majority of his performances from the Bubble and Luminescent Man series were performed abroad. |
 Gallery Artists Spring Exhibition 2007-3-17 - 2007-4-22 |
For its Gallery Artists Spring Exhibition, Chinese Contemporary is pleased to show works by Chen Wenbo, Chang Qing, Shi Guorui, Xue Song, Wu Junyong and Zhang Jianqiang. With this exhibition, Chinese Contemporary highlights the work of established artists and the works of younger artists such Zhang Jianqiang and Wu Junyong. A broad spectrum of mediums provides an engaging perspective into contemporary Chinese art... MORE>>>> |
 Collage 2006-12-30 - 2007-02-28 |
Beijing emergence as a global city has given rise to some of China's boldest architecture and most innovative advertising. In Collage, Chinese Contemporary Gallery will show the works of four of Beijing's most prominent architects and advertisers, Ma Yongsong, Wang Yonggang, Yang Haihua and Zhou Rong. Ma Yongsong, best known for his design of the Absolute Tower in Mississauga, Canada, has created a rainbow for this exhibition. With this rainbow, he hopes to reunite urbanism, technology and human emotion. Wang Yonggang's work, New Taihu Stone, boldly redesigns the Taihu stone and addresses the ways in which modern architecture structurally redefines... MORE>>>> |
 Tenth Anniversary Exhibition 2006-09-30 - 2006-11-30 |
Chinese Contemporary gallery is celebrating ten years of championing the Chinese avant garde with a special exhibition in their Beijing gallery at Factory 798. In 1996 Chinese Contemporary opened in London and was the first gallery in the West devoted solely to contemporary Chinese art from artists living and working in China. Most of the works have been specially made for this anniversary exhibition and never seen before.
Hong Hao, renowned for his "My Things" photos of collections of thousands of objects, has created a special work, "Chinese Contemporary 10 Years". This photograph is made of a multitude of objects from the life of the gallery over the past ten years: exhibition announcements, images of the artists at the openings of various public and private exhibitions, great press moments for the Chinese artists, passes to the art fairs that have helped to make their names etc. It is a portrait of the gallery but more importantly a portrait of ten years of contemporary Chinese art. ... MORE>>>> |
 Wu Junyong: The Sky Has a Mouth 2006-07-20 - 2006-09-23 |
Wu Junyong's animation DVD works are the most exciting creations to come from the younger generation of contemporary Chinese artists. The combination of image, sound and text combine to give a pulsating vision of newly rich, urban Chinese society. Just as the great contemporary painters of the previous generation of the Chinese avant garde captured the zeitgeist of China in the 1990s, Wu Junyong captures it of wealthy China in 2005/06.
Wait Us Rich, 2005, the artist's first work available for acquisition by collectors, is a young man's take on nouveau riche society. The artist conveys that world's excesses, energy, brashness and power. The images that make up the DVD in themselves are sufficient to portray the desires of new money but the combination with music, voice and text quadruples the power of the message. Just as this newly wealthy society with its great capacity for acquisition is aggressively continuing to push forward, grow and succeed at the fastest possible rate, the multimedia nature of...MORE>>>> |
 Chairman Mao 10,000 RMB 2006-04-08 - 2006-05-21 |
Chinese Contemporary in Beijing and 10 Chancery Lane Gallery in Hong Kong are pleased to present the works of Huang Rui in two simultaneous solo shows featuring top works from the past fourteen years of his career."Chairman Mao 10,000 RMB"is Huang Rui's first solo show in Mainland China, and presents an important opportunity to view firsthand a survey of works by one of China's most influential contemporary art figures. An original founder of the avant-garde art Stars in 1979 and now vocal advocate for the 798 Art District, Huang Rui is an artist whose works avoids easy taxonomy. Over the years his works have taken on many forms. Most of them are characterized by a spirit of rebelliousness and an interest in exploring how the human condition faces up to the impenetrable walls of authority. The works on view in "Chairman Mao 10,000 RMB" speak to China's modern leadership in transition and the paradoxes posed by the ideological collision between socialism and capitalism up to the present day. ... MORE>>>> |
 Replacement 2006-03-04 - 2006-03-31 | Featuring paintings and works on paper, RePlacement explores various approaches to personal historiography and notions of the past. The works by five young artists, Hu Xiaoyuan, Peter Gerakaris, Li Li, Mike Lowery, and Qiu Xiaofei, question the fixity of memories and the logic of time through comedic, fantastic, and bittersweet renditions of reality. These works invite us to experience the artists' very private and personal memories, which are treated with a consideration that reflects a simultaneous desire to preserve and linger in the past, as well as an urge to reinterpret, challenge, and subvert the power of what came before.
For Harbin native Hu Xiaoyuan, the everyday is significant. Her training in design at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing is evident in the Spots series, Pointillist depictions of transport vehicles, sexual anatomy, machine guns, and cute animals that resemble color-blindness tests administered at a doctor's office. . ... MORE>>>> |
 Wei Dong 2005-10-29 - 2006-01-15 |
While a great number of artists work in the Chinese traditional media of ink and colour on paper, none have taken it into the realm of the avant garde as has Wei Dong. Most painters of the avant garde turned to oil or acrylic on canvas, leaving behind their country's traditional technique. They had great respect for tradition but it was not for them. Artists still working in chinese ink and colour on paper, for the most part, remained outside the avant garde and continued the tradition of emulating old masters. Wei Dong explores through painting the space where heritage and modernity coexist. His works set up a dialogue, present a confrontation and explode a good number of conventions. In a disruption of tradition Wei Dong has taken this male dominated domain and subjected it to domination by women. Traditional Chinese landscape, created by male artists, containing male figures and for the male gaze, finds itself in Wei Dong's works as the backdrop...MORE>>>> |
 From Jingdezhen to PVC 2005-07-22 - 2005-09-30 | Sculptors in China have not traditionally held a place of high esteem. Magnificent sculptures have been made to adorn temples, burial sites, public places and buildings but rarely has the name of the creator been remembered. Sculpture was regarded closer to craft than a fine art because it involved manual skills, unlike the intellectual and rarefied nature of calligraphy or brush painting. Although sculptures were readily seen and appreciated, those who created the works remained anonymous. When the first western style art academies opened in China in the early twentieth century and artists returned after studies in European art academies, the idea that sculpture could be other than a craft, a fine art in fact, was more readily accepted. The advent of Socialist Realism after 1949 monopolized the development of sculpture for a few decades. Socialist Realism was championed as the only style befitting the public art of the communist revolution. With the greater exchange of ideas in China in the 1980s and 1990s and the flourishing of individual approaches to creation, artists have brought their own thoughts to sculpture as they have to all the fine arts. The result has been....MORE>>>> |
 Blue House Artists 2005-05-03 - 2005-07-31 |
For its spring 2005 exhibition Chinese Contemporary presented Blue House Artists, a group show centered on the works of five Sichuan based artists: Chen Qiulin, Wu Jianjun, Zhao Nengzhi, Zhou Chunya and Guo Wei, The Blue House in the title refers to the color of the roof of an old factory compound located on the outskirts of Chengdu the artists have converted into their studios and where they have been working and living since 2002. Since?its renovation the Blue House has become far more than a place to work: it has become an art community, a shelter for people sharing the same life style and pursuing the same goals, as well as a colony where the artworks themselves act as a platform for dialogue and confrontation among artists working with different media. The present exhibition is aimed at catching a glimpse of the vibrant atmosphere the artists ...MORE>> |
 Inaugural Exhibition 2004-09-25 - 2004-12-31 |
Lu Hao's constructions, usually in plexiglass, take a new look at tradition, examining why we accept certain rituals, habits, buildings and developments. Reduced scale reconstructions of iconic buildings presented as bird cages, cricket houses, fish bowls or flower pots; a 9 square meter model of China's drastically redesigned capital city; an installation of plastic lotus flowers and traditional houses - all force the viewer to reflect anew on complex social rituals and iconic constructions and places. The lotus flowers of this work were created with the Chinese grave sweeping day in mind. With the small traditional courtyard houses inside the flowers it is a homage to the now destroyed old neighborhoods of Beijing. Zhu Ming's performance works involve a considerable degree of stress to the individual's (artist's) body. In some of his performances he fluoresces green due to a chemical he paints on his body. In others he is protected by only by his balloon from the dangers of a major body of water (South China Sea). He constantly explores the zones where protection and restriction or vulnerability and independence intermingle. Some works involve the use of Chinese ink, the symbol of literati culture, and can be taken as a reference to tradition and revolution depending on which era one thinks of... MORE>> |