Waves by Xiaodong Zhang
Padiglione San Marino, 58th Venice Biennale, 2019.
This 58th International Art Exhibition is titled May You Live In Interesting Times, a phrase of English invention that has long been mistakenly cited as an ancient Chinese curse that invokes periods of crisis, turmoil and uncertainty; "interesting times", exactly as the ones we live in today. Its Chinese version can also be understood as “just the right time”. Today, China has entered a new era that emphasizes creativity and innovation. With a long history of art and culture, China, together with many other countries in the world, now faces complicated opportunities and challenges in the context of globalization. The Venice Biennale is a grand gathering of artistic ideas from all over the world and so the production of Xiaodong Zhang serves to showcase China’s cultural proposition and self-confidence in the new era. The artist, exhibiting for the first time in Europe, will integrate innovative techniques into the traditional logic of Chinese art. Zhang’s artworks take seriously art’s potential as a method for looking into things that we do not already know - things that may be off-limits, under-the-radar, or otherwise inaccessible for various reasons. His artistic drive springs from a belief that interesting art creates forms whose particular character and delineation raise questions about the ways in which we mark cultural boundaries and borders. Intelligent artistic activity involves creating forms that call attention to what forms conceal, and the functions that they fulfil. Zhang’s exhibition wants to highlight art that exists in between categories, and which questions the rationales behind our categorical
thinking. We are looking for a more open and inclusive attitude toward the interactions between art and the times, and between art and the public, to explore new perspectives and new mindsets in art to benefit people’s lives. The exhibition aims to welcome its public to an expansive experience of absorption and creative learning that art makes possible. This will entail engaging visitors in an encounter that is essentially playful; this exhibition is also an artistic journey of multi-sensory activation with changing views and varying experiences for the spectator. Xiaodong Zhang’s endeavour started from curiosity and the desire to better understand something that seem to troubled the artist’s feelings. A rigorous, elaborate research process and reinterpretations of the subject matter allowed Zhang to create a body of work that prompts reflection, reimagining, and rethinking of our past and our current ways of life. Zhang’s artistic production is emphasized by his background as Aeroespacial Engineer.
Influenced by the Chinese teacher Lu Jingren he stepped into the field of book design as form of art. Books are poetically inhabited buildings and can travel through time and space and the space between pages is compared to a parallel space; so the text is free to swim inside, poetically arranged. The past and the future are transformed, and the different civilizations are transformed into a new poetic arrangement and the restrictions between all disciplines dissolved. In his work Dream of the Red Chamber in accordion-dragon scale binding, the books become a fluid sculpture when displayed open. In Chinese culture, book-binding is widely considered an art form within itself and a pillar of cultural production; Zhang is among the first to revive this intricate method and his entry has taken more than four years to complete. This informed his new body of work, the Qian Ye series, a sort of ‘paper carving’, that he first invented after observing over time the inevitable changing in shape of the paper he transported during his trip back and forth from Tibet. We’ve brought together a selection of Zhang’s works where he pushes the boundaries of his own artistic medium, resulting in a display of refreshing outlooks. Some of the works adopt his cultural heritage, but with a contemporary new twist; others surprise us with a creative artistic sensibility to reinvent familiar modern content into new experiences. Xiaodong Zhang is projected into the future. Through the door of his work, he invites the viewer's feelings to perceive and find their own shadow from this profound culture and to leave behind the ancient civilizations and jump into the future. There is an inward-looking that makes it difficult to understand, but it’s appealing to people who want to know more and can find a way to connect.
Padiglione San Marino 2 • 12th October - 24th November 2019 • VENICE BIENNALE
The exhibition Waves by the artist Xiaodong Zhang is organised by the Oriental Art Center, Venice. Oriental Art Center
Universita’ Ca Foscari
Venice, Italy
