Ripples Stress
Yin Xiuzhen Solo Exhibition
Apl 29 to Oct 08, Shanghai Museum of Glass, 2023
The exhibition consists of seven parts.
Outside and inside the exhibition hall, there is a flesh-colored horn named "Xiuzhen Pink". This breathing apparatus is clamped by huge steel pipes, with its broken wounds and needles shocking to the eye. Submerged Throat is a series of works made from the same material, connects the inside and outside of the exhibition. When viewers try to look out through the holes, they don't see a straightforward view, but rather the reflection of the surrounding environment in the opposite mirror of the horn and the glass balls in the shallow throat.
The first group of Ripple Stress, which gives the exhibition its name, is laid flat on the ground and consists of layers of fruit and glass that have been fired. Although the sweet fruit has been carbonized, its original contours can still be vaguely seen. The glass is picturesque, and each piece tells a story about life.
The other group of Ripple Stress is an adventurous attempt by the artist, who mixes everyday items such as washbasins and bowls with plaster and constantly stirs them during the glass-making process, changing the humidity, temperature, and force fields of the glass to produce ripple stress that cannot be controlled.
Looking up at the top of the exhibition hall, twelve holes are filled with old clothes, echoing the works on the ground. Along with these clothes are 108 bubbles containing the breaths of 108 people collected as permanent memorials and evidence of their existence. In a separate space,
108 groups of teardrop-shaped vessels are arranged from low to high. Each group of vessels differs by one centimeter, and viewers can find a group that suits their height. Tear Instrument is a space for inner self-isolation and emotional placement.
The final work of the exhibition is composed of a piece of glass debris and a mosquito that the artist accidentally discovered in this space and named Heavenly Mandate.
To Be or Not To Be
Song Dong Solo Exhibition
Apl 29 to Oct 08, Shanghai Museum of Glass, 2023
Part one, Traceless, 2023. Frosted glass, brush, water.
Part two, Ignorance, 2020-2023. Glass publications, cast glass and window spaces.
Part three, Limitless, 2020-2023,. Cast glass and food crops.
Part four, Desireless, 2020-2023. Blown glass, daily necessities, old furniture, projectors, no annealing.
Part five, Not To Be, 2018-2023. Neon lights, steel plates, controllers.
Glass has been a part of human life for thousands of years, with its earliest history dating back to ancient civilizations over 4,000 years ago. With the innovation and development of technology, glass has become widely used in various fields of daily life. However, the extensive use of glass in contemporary art has only emerged in recent years. This exhibition features a total of thirteen sets of works that cover various manufacturing processes and categories of glass, including frosted glass, casting, blowing, neon lights, flat glass, lampworking, glass casting, LED screens, and mirrors. This is the first time in the field of contemporary art that glass has been used so extensively and creatively. Among them, the bold and groundbreaking mixing and firing of glass with everyday items such as clothing and fruits is a pioneering move in the history of glass art and art in general. "Non-glass is indispensable", is Song's general description of this exhibition. Because of glass, there is existence. Song and Yin are skilled at thoroughly understanding the materials they use, and then deconstructing and reconstructing them conceptually, integrating them into their own aesthetic systems. This exhibition uses glass as a narrative carrier, breaking the conventional understanding of glass. It invites us to start from the representation of glass and delve into philosophy from the outside in.
The Way of Chopsticks: Tasting Light
by Song Dong, Yin Xiuzhen, and Song ErRui
The Way of Chopsticks is a 20-year-long art project by the married couple, Song Dong and Yin Xiuzhen. They agreed to keep their works a secret from each other and create independently, while exhibiting together. For this exhibition, the couple continued their original plan and invited their daughter Song Er’rui to join them. Each of them created a "chopstick" and arranged them in the shape of the Chinese character "品" (pǐn), naming it "Tasting Light" (品光).
The Way of Chopsticks - Tasting Light by Song Dong, Yin Xiuzhen, and Song ErRui, 2023, Mirror, glass, plants. videos.
Intercodex:
Emily Cheng solo Exhibition
VillageOne Art, New York
Emily Cheng's work, combining semiotics and visual imagery, portrays and constructs spiritual connections between humanity, nature, and the cosmos, embodying her pursuit of human origins and the essence of the universe. Her artworks are characterized by their simplicity and abstraction, vibrant and luminous colors. Arrangements of points, lines, and various geometric shapes have become characteristic, with compositions that exude order through meticulous rationality. Color layouts and variations create a sense of temporal depth and spatial breadth. The artworks pulsate with the dynamism of celestial bodies, unfurling a grand serenity. Through the art's use of negative space and color tones, we can sense an aura of Eastern aesthetics. Gazing at her works, we may experience spiritual strength, comfort and childlike joy.
Born and raised in the United States, Emily received her formal education here, while her Asian heritage endowed her with a rich background in Chinese culture and philosophy. This unique upbringing has kept her intimately familiar with both Eastern and Western artistic languages while maintaining a certain distance— resulting in a style that seamlessly blends the two. Emily has received numerous awards, including the 1982-1983 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, the 1996 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, and the 2010 Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant. She has participated in the Guangzhou Triennial, Guangdong Art Museum; Hubei Triennial, Hubei Art Museum in China, and the upcoming 2023 Shanghai Biennale. Her works have been exhibited and collected by institutions such as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Bronx Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art, (Taipei MOCA), Shenzhen Art Museum, Shenzhen, China, the Metropolitan Museum of Manila, Ayala Museum in the Philippines, the Cincinnati Center of Contemporary Art, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the U.S. Embassy in China, and the Shau Kei Wan Subway Station in Hong Kong. Emily is represented by Hanart Gallery in Hong Kong and upcoming exhibitions will include Art Basel HK, and the Taipei Art Fair 2024.
Indigo Ray Body,183x152cm, acrylic on Canvas, 2020
Red Earth Orange Crown, 203x178cm, acylic on Canvas, 2017
Summer Group Show Singapore, 2021
A brand new art fair, ART SG seeks to drive the whole Singapore art industry in a more international direction. Utlizing this opportunity, some emerging galleries hope to bring more cultural vitality into Singapore, as well as a new focus on artists with international vision. Following this line of thought, Zoe ZHANG Bing curated this exhibition for 39+ Art Space Gallery.
The exhibition includes Emily Cheng from New York, Pearl Hsiung from Los Angeles, and Sarah Lee who has just settled in Los Angeles from Korea.
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Pearl Hsiung, 39+ Art Space, 2022, Singapore.
Amalia Ulman Lian Zhou Foto Festival
2017-2018
Lianzhou is a four-hour drive from Guangzhou, China. People here live a simple mountain village life, growing crops, picking Chinese herbs, making dried chrysanthemum tea and tofu skin. Many abandoned buildings have been used as exhibition spaces for photography festivals. As one of the curators of this 2017 photography theme exhibition, we presented the works Excellences and Perfections by artist Amalia Ulman. The exhibition space was originally a barn, a storehouse for storing rice for the local villagers.
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Michel BLAZY Le tombeau de la vaisselle Shanghai, 2018
On the occasion of the 5th Sino-French Environmental Month, Michel Blazy was invited by Consulat général de France à Shanghai to come to Shanghai to launch a uniquely new project——Le tombeau de la vaisselle by using agar, an organic material, and utilizing its gradually changing characteristics. Agar is an edible gelatin derived from seaweed that can be made into translucent, colored and firm shapes. These sculptures can quickly damage and change appearance over time. A masterful mix of natural and man-made materials forms the vehicle for the artist's explorations, so his work becomes a metaphor for fragility, lost practices, and the transience of life.
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9 M2 Museum Projects
Goethe Open Space 2013 - 2015
Goethe Open Space invited independent curator Zoe ZHANG Bing to be the curator of its 2013–2014 art programme under the theme of “9m2 Museum.” The concept of a nine-square-meter museum is proposed as an alternative to tackle the current boom of art museum construction in China. Under such circumstance, public art museums are witnessing changes in their social role and private art museums flourish in both size and number. China is now heading into an era of art museum, meaning art museum has become a phenomenon. In such a context, politics, capital and art museums are closely connected with art playing an interestingly significant role among them. Increasingly expanding museum space, in some cases, leads to an excessive dependency on good space conditions when artists want to present their practice. Given the situation, we start to wonder how artists would deal with a gallery covering only nine square meters. How to tackle the proportional relation between the volume of their work and the space? How to maintain and manifest the aesthetic tension of their work? Is a nine-square-meter museum a restriction or an interesting challenge? The 9m2 Museum is an opportunity for artists to withdraw from their previous experience of exhibition-making and to reconsider the relations between art creation and exhibition, exhibition and space, and space and the art system.
Round I
The Living Room,.One Night Exhibition ( 18 October 2013)
Ni Youyu, Zilch (15 November–5 December 2013) Learn more I Press
Wang Sishun, The Indeterminate Boundless (13 December 2013 –3 January 3 2014) Learn more I Press
The Museum of the Unknown, Society Meditation – Drift (10–30 January 2014) Learn more
Aaajiao, The Screen Generation (21 February–15 March 2014)
Round II
Taipei Kuandu Biennale, 2012
Artist in Wonderland
Liu Jianhua
Every person has an innate ability for imagination. Even more, artists are practitioners of “imagination.” With its theme, Artist in Wonderland, the 2012 Kuandu Biennale brings together ten artists and curators from different countries and cultural backgrounds across Asia to showcase a multitude of imagination surrounding “Artist in Wonderland.”
Ten international artists + ten international curators work together to expand the maximum range value of “1+1 = ?”. It may correspond to an aesthetic speculation of the world, a subconscious outlet for imagination, a futuristic urban landscape, a disappearing landscape mapping, a pursuit of historical myths... or even romantic imaginations regarding this fantasy world of “Wonderland.” Through the different understandings and interpretations between the real and the psychological, and the discrepancies found within the texts of dialogues, artists are able to once again write about the past, present, and future of the language of art through their works. This particular gathering juxtaposes the immediate outlook of Asian contemporary art with its creative tenses. On another level, it also demonstrates the styles and appearances of Asian contemporary art even as it is surrounded by the mainstream of Western art movements.
It is the hope that the dialogue platform created by the Kuandu Biennale links together artists, curators, art critics, art spaces, and other art communities and exhibition mechanisms into a multi-cultural system comprised of various Asian nationalities. With an intimate and pragmatic approach, it materializes a communication network that features a “multi-directional dialogue” for Asian contemporary art, and further promotes an opportunity for cooperation amongst its various disciplines.
Artist vs. Curator
Boo Ji-hyun＋Kim Bog-gi
Agi, CHEN Yi-Chieh＋ Wang Po-Wei
Tiffany Chung＋Việt Lê
Tsui Kuang-Yu＋ Huang Chien-Hung
Liu Jian-Hua＋ Zoe ZHANG Bing
Michael Lee＋Joanna Lee
Nipan Oranniwesna＋ Jeab Gridthiya Gaweewong
Pip & Pop＋Sarah Bond
Don Salubayba＋Patrick D. Flores
GO Watanabe＋Taro Amano
