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Shanghai, P.R.China
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| melbourneconnectionasia
2003 Shanghai, P.R.China Artists Liang Yue Zhao Bandi Pu Jie Zhou Tiehai Yang Zhenzhong |
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Word
has gone around that Shanghai is a dynamic city fast filling with
skyscrapers. Despite this modern look the city has not found a clear
image of itself yet. These artists show the diversity and complexity of this most cosmopolitan, yet unformed city. They differ in their artistic expression and belong to different generations, different worlds but all located or active in Shanghai. Liang Yue, early twenties, grew up in Deng Xiaoping's relatively stable and wealthy China of the 80s and 90s. As a single child in one of the new 'un heroic' buildings, she tries to be an individual and make sense of living in this new city without models. Pu Jie born 20 years earlier, when there were brothers and sisters, when the city was basically unchanged. Suddenly confronted with the recent rapid changes, his work reacts by documenting it, questioning it. Yang Zhenzhong belongs to the generation of people whose work is not about how to create the new Shanghai but questions the changes, and whose works deals with how to live in the 'concrete' realty of Shanghai today. Zhao Bandi, the only artist based in Beijing, is still very present in Shanghai's billboards and newspapers with his 'public welfare posters' where he poses with his mascot, the very Chinese panda. Zhou Tiehai, born at the beginning of the cultural revolution, knows about the past fights, the idealism, that heroism and vanity. He realizes Shanghai as a unique city but also as a non-entity in the world. His art reflects, uses, criticizes the powerlines of our world today. Lorenz Helbling 2003 |
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Lorenz
Helbling was born in Switzerland and studied Art History and Chinese
in Zurich and Shanghai. He first arrived in Shanghai in 1985 and
stayed for two years studying the language and Chinese movies. After
working in a Hong Kong gallery he returned to Shanghai where he
set up ShanghART.
ShanghART was established by Lorenz Helbling. Amongst the first of the independent galleries exhibiting contemporary Chinese art, opening in 1996. It moved in 1999 to Shanghai's Fuxing Park and in 2000 expanded to a warehouse space near Suzhou Creek. ShanghART works with many museums and institutions in China and worldwide, and participates in major international art fairs. This reflects the growing interest in the rich contemporary Chinese culture that has been fostered by art spaces like ShanghART. Image right, Avenue No 1, Pu Jie, acrylic on canvas, 229 X 180cm, 2002 |
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artists from P.R.China were selected by Lorenz Helbling and are all
represented by ShanghART gallery. shanghartgallery.com |
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