ARTIST

LI XIUQIN

HAN DONG 

GUAN HUAIBIN

WANG KAI  

ZHANG HAO

KONG GUOQIAO

CHEN YUJUN

XIAO BO

WU JUNYONG

SHI BOWEN

ZHU XI

CAO SHU

GONG CHENYU

WANG HAILONG

ZHU XIANGMIN

MIAO CHENHUI

CHEN JINGSI

YOU DIWEN

MIAO LAIYING

WANG BANYU

PREFACE

CROSS THE YEAR：

Expansion of the Contemporary

The western New Year has passed, the Chinese Lunar New Year is lurking around the corner. The mismatch between these two new years, it is not just an illusion or a gap, it is more about the differences between the perspectives and concerns of these two cultures. Nian, the Chinese Lunar New Year, for us, from a mind’s monster dashing in your imagination, to a compressed and simplified flat retained form, has quickly lost its own richness and vitality. Nian, as a kind of waiting and expectation, is actually a checkpoint connecting the start and the end, it expands the time beyond its units of minutes and seconds, days and nights, takes it to another sensible dimension. Each one of us, having the aid of it, sets a direction, not so distant, can finally wait for the spiritual arrival and transcendence. However, Nian is not only a channel leading towards freedom, but also a prison maze, or a threshold between the virtual and reality, not only a hindrance to the surpassing and exceeding, but also a measurement to the dept and width of the spirit world.

For the Chinese contemporary artists in the oriental context, what, exactly, does Nian mean? How to respond to the cosmopolitanism on the paralleling timeline of the oriental and occidental cultures? How to proceed from the tradition and reality, and reach the shore of contemporary spirits?  Crossing the year, to some extend, means liberation from the captive time by self-reflection. This exhibition not only intends to showcase the works of the artists, but also to present their spiritual extensions, and their ways of expression in the modern context. In the intertwined space and time, what is contemporary? What is our contemporary? The question is not as clear as the two New Years’ juxtaposition. According to Giorgio Agamben, the contemporary is the connection between the spirit and zeitgeist, attached to the time, simultaneously keeping a distance. In everyday life, we are bonded by the time. Nian, as an extened tense, it enables us to keep a mental distance with a certain period of reality, thus to retrospect and reflect in time to another.

The exhibition coincides with the beginning of spring. A day heralds the coming of a new cycle. For Renke, and for the participating artists, crossing the year does not mean arrival or relief, but a beginning of a new challenging journey. Hence, perhaps we should temporarily abandon the rhetoric and traditions in the art works, instead, restore the awareness of the artists’ reflections on society and their spiritual concerns. In this turbulent era, let’s follow the artists, try to find exit in the labyrinth and the infinite loop. Let’s enjoy the happiness of new year, do not afraid of loneliness, flit across time and space, for all the dreamers, it is a poetic journey.

Liang Qin

End of the year 2014, in Renke

RALATED LINKS

www.artlinkart.com/cn/exhibition/overview/b63dwzrj

ori.hangzhou.com.cn/ornews/content/2015-02/05/content_5641086.htm

www.hongruart.net/zl/2015-02-03/1401.html

hz.bendibao.com/xiuxian/2015210/52154.shtm

news.163.com/15/0207/03/AHQRUTPQ00014SEH.html

ltsfgs.zjol.com.cn/system/2015/02/11/020508537.shtml

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