Weng Yunpeng and Zhang Xianyong Fall 2008
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Show dates: 09•06 through 10•25•2008
Reception: 09•5th from 6:00 to 8:00 pm
Weng Yunpeng
Obscure Realities
LIMN gallery is pleased to present Weng Yunpeng’s second solo exhibition in the United States. Weng’s paintings invariably include the television set which is a defining part of Chinese culture;
If you were a TV viewer in China before 1980, pickings were slim. One option was a program that scrolled Chairman Mao's quotations across the screen to music praising Mao; not that you would likely have had a TV in the first place as ownership was tightly controlled. By the end of the 1980s, though, nearly every region in the country received at least one or two channels. “Soap operas” and movies have been the dominant entertainment form in Chinese culture just as they have been in the West and gathering around a TV set in the streets in a common form of social interaction.
But in Weng’s large paintings, the TV sits alone like a sculpture as though it were part of the urban setting or the desolated streets of the Chinese countryside. There are no people in Weng’s compositions and deliberately so, as the narration of the painting is focused on the TV screen. Weng often asks what is this power of the TV that is casting a spell over the masses. For him, it is not a political ideology, but simply political. Recent events such as 9-11, the war in Iraq or the capture of Saddam Hussein are the only indication of passage of time and bring to our attention the comparison between old and new, reminding us that globalization has brought China a little closer to the rest of the world.
Weng Yunpeng works and lives in Beijing and currently teaches at the prestigious Central Academy of Art.
Zhang Xianyong
You, Me and Them
Limn gallery is pleased to present Zhang Xianyong’s first solo exhibition outside of China. His works was first introduced last year during the tenth anniversary of LIMN gallery’s presentation of contemporary Chinese art.
Inspired by both traditional story telling of Chinese Opera and contemporary images of the West, Zhang Xianyong carefully stages tableaux in photographs that are fresh and humorous. He mixes Eastern and Western civilization in multiple combinations whose disorders of time and space form the special characteristics of his work.
Zhang creates “a self” over and over, searching for an identity in a society where the collective takes precedent over the individual. However, Zhang still believes that “we” is everywhere and that each of us cannot exists without the other. His process is an accumulation of poses, expressions and an acute attention to visual space. Once shot over the course of a few weeks, Zhang painstakingly composes the final scene. Like a painting from the renaissance masters, Zhang reworks the light as he incorporates each element. The “Last Supper, the workers” (referring to Da Vinci’s “Last Supper”) is a group of thirteen construction workers stuffing their faces in a smoke filled room.
Zhang’s work is a constant observation of the present meshing with the past. Zhang shoots in the street of Shanghai, which, because of its European colonial past is the perfect background for his stories and for making his points. In the second series entitled “Sleepwalking”, Zhang takes a personal journey through his childhood and revisits the cultural and social history of Shanghai.
Zhang Xianyong will be present for the opening reception.
Show dates: 09•06 through 10•25•2008
Reception: 09•5th from 6:00 to 8:00 pm
Weng Yunpeng
Obscure Realities
LIMN gallery is pleased to present Weng Yunpeng’s second solo exhibition in the United States. Weng’s paintings invariably include the television set which is a defining part of Chinese culture;
If you were a TV viewer in China before 1980, pickings were slim. One option was a program that scrolled Chairman Mao's quotations across the screen to music praising Mao; not that you would likely have had a TV in the first place as ownership was tightly controlled. By the end of the 1980s, though, nearly every region in the country received at least one or two channels. “Soap operas” and movies have been the dominant entertainment form in Chinese culture just as they have been in the West and gathering around a TV set in the streets in a common form of social interaction.
But in Weng’s large paintings, the TV sits alone like a sculpture as though it were part of the urban setting or the desolated streets of the Chinese countryside. There are no people in Weng’s compositions and deliberately so, as the narration of the painting is focused on the TV screen. Weng often asks what is this power of the TV that is casting a spell over the masses. For him, it is not a political ideology, but simply political. Recent events such as 9-11, the war in Iraq or the capture of Saddam Hussein are the only indication of passage of time and bring to our attention the comparison between old and new, reminding us that globalization has brought China a little closer to the rest of the world.
Weng Yunpeng works and lives in Beijing and currently teaches at the prestigious Central Academy of Art.
Zhang Xianyong
You, Me and Them
Limn gallery is pleased to present Zhang Xianyong’s first solo exhibition outside of China. His works was first introduced last year during the tenth anniversary of LIMN gallery’s presentation of contemporary Chinese art.
Inspired by both traditional story telling of Chinese Opera and contemporary images of the West, Zhang Xianyong carefully stages tableaux in photographs that are fresh and humorous. He mixes Eastern and Western civilization in multiple combinations whose disorders of time and space form the special characteristics of his work.
Zhang creates “a self” over and over, searching for an identity in a society where the collective takes precedent over the individual. However, Zhang still believes that “we” is everywhere and that each of us cannot exists without the other. His process is an accumulation of poses, expressions and an acute attention to visual space. Once shot over the course of a few weeks, Zhang painstakingly composes the final scene. Like a painting from the renaissance masters, Zhang reworks the light as he incorporates each element. The “Last Supper, the workers” (referring to Da Vinci’s “Last Supper”) is a group of thirteen construction workers stuffing their faces in a smoke filled room.
Zhang’s work is a constant observation of the present meshing with the past. Zhang shoots in the street of Shanghai, which, because of its European colonial past is the perfect background for his stories and for making his points. In the second series entitled “Sleepwalking”, Zhang takes a personal journey through his childhood and revisits the cultural and social history of Shanghai.
Zhang Xianyong will be present for the opening reception.
