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Sui Jianguo’s Beijing Voice

2014-02-24

China Pictorial 2014年1期

Sui Jianguos Beijing Voice

Born in 1956 in Qingdao, Shandong Province, Sui Jianguo received a BA from the Fine Arts Department of Shandong University of Arts in 1984 and an MA from the Sculpture Department of the China Central Academy of Fine Arts in 1989, where he remains as chair of the Sculpture Department. He has been praised by art critics for becoming a “pioneer who ventured to the furthest reaches of Chinese sculpture.” Sui Jianguos art evidences his unique understanding and recognition of creation, form, diverse media, alternative methods, and space-time. His sculpture successfully inspires introspection of the artistic process in modern China. Whether realism of his early work or the classic shapes of his later Mao Jacket and Dinosaur pieces, Suis sculpture is injected with wisdom from Chinese genealogy and channels culture into the solution for pressing problems.

BEIJING VOICE: RELATIONS

Pace Beijing

December 10, 2013 – February 29, 2014

Cai Guo-Qiang

Cai Guo-Qiang was born in 1957 in Quanzhou City, Fujian Province, China. He was trained in stage design at the Shanghai Theater Academy; his work has since crossed multiple mediums within art, including drawing, installation, video and performance art. While living in Japan from 1986 to 1995, he explored the properties of gunpowder in his drawings, an inquiry that eventually led to his experimentation with explosives on a massive scale and the development of his signature explosion events. Cai made a huge impact on art circles in the West, and the media gave him the nickname“tornado.” Cai was awarded the Golden Lion at the 48th Venice Biennale in 1999. In 2012, Cai was honored with the Praemium Imperiale, which recognized his accomplishments in Painting; he also received the U.S. Department of State Medal of Arts award the same year. With his unique understanding of the universe and Eastern philosophy, Cai endeavors to explore issues that all humans face. His most recent exhibition, Falling Back to Earth, calls for the public to, once again, live harmoniously with nature and re-embrace the tranquility of landscapes.

Falling Back to Earth

Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Australia

November 23, 2013 – May 11, 2014

Respect of Zhong Han

Born in 1929, Zhong Han studied architecture at Tsinghua University from 1946 to 1948 and then oil painting at the China Central Academy of Fine Arts. He served as a professor at the China Central Academy of Fine Arts until his retirement. He was nominated academician by the Belgium Royal Literature and Art Academy in 1993. As an artist who witnessed much of last century, Zhong Han experienced many of the ups and downs of the nation, so he cherished his complicated attachment to the land, which resulted in work sated with humanitarian concern and respect for the time-honored history of China.

Earth and Humanity – Solo Exhibition of Zhong Han November 24 – December 4, 2013

National Museum of China

Diao Qingchuns Time

As an oil painter, Diao Qingchuns mission is not to depict Chinese traditionalism through a simple collage of connected images. At first glance his compositions appear chaotic, but the artist has infused each canvas with his own perception about the nature of the cosmos – its transient actors existing in abstract space of his own thought and emotion. His style is best represented in the Fission series, where the world of man has succumbed to the erosion of time, becoming dunes of sand as years washed it away. Here, painting has brushed away the mist to reveal the deep marks mankind is currently leaving on the planet.

The Trace of Years – Diao Qingchun Solo Exhibition

Today Art Museum

December 16 – December 25, 2013

Made by Xu Zhen

An irreverent artist with a voracious appetite for global information and a unique ability to produce work across multiple platforms and media, Xu Zhen, born in 1977, is a key figure in the Shanghai art scene and a founding figure for Chinas millennial generation of artists. Xus oeuvre reflects the lingering concerns of an artist participating in the international art world while remaining deeply skeptical of it and its conventions, most immediately the label “Chinese contemporary art.” Xu Zhens work probes the various subconscious factors that corrupt a viewers experience with art, particularly when observing an exotic culture.

A MadeIn Company Production January 18 – April 20, 2013

Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (UCCA)