Hong Kong Perrotin – Xu Zhen – The Glorious

XU ZHEN® THE GLORIOUS
OPENING | Monday, March 25, 11 am – 8 pm
ARTIST WALK-THROUGH | Monday, March 25, 4 – 5 pm EXHIBITION | March 25 – May 11, 2019

Perrotin Hong Kong is pleased to present the solo exhibition The Glorious by XU ZHEN® from March 25, 2019. It is the artist’s third solo exhibition with the gallery, following Civilization Iteration at Perrotin Paris and a subsequent installment at Perrotin Seoul. This show will feature three of the artist’s signature work series: Under Heaven, Eternity, and Evolution, showcasing a variety of installations, paintings, and sculptures. Since the founding of MadeIn Company in 2009, XU ZHEN® has produced works as a brand, utilizing modern production mechanisms to tackle the current plight of art amidst globalization and capitalization. By juxtaposing classical elements of civilization throughout human history and making them collide, the artist resuscitates visual experience in everyday life and prevalent symbols of art history, enabling spectators to interpret a hostofissues—the value of art, clashes of culture, geopolitics—in a different light.
are densely and profusely applied onto the canvas using cream piping bags, resulting in baroque-style squiggles and swirls that evoke a carnivalesque revelry in a realm under heaven conjured by the artist. This series has been a familiar sight to many since shown as the visual centerpiece of the 2014 Armory Show in New York. XU ZHEN® consistently employs readily digestible artistic experiences, which take on a satirical function as metaphors for modern society’s excessive consumerism and explore the limits of commodifying art. Revealed in other chromatic installments of the Under Heaven series is the collusion between sensualism and commercialization.ThisGold series, despite its use of the most opulent color known to man, irradiates a dignified and profound beauty. The black walls of the exhibition space incarnate Jun’ichirō Tanizaki’s dense shadows; the gold submerges into darkness, but still emits a solemn sheen, even in places where the sun cannot reach. The Glorious, the exhibition’s title, refers to the dazzling glare of Under Heaven-Gold as well as the accomplishment and wealth symbolized by works of art.

As some of the most representative series of works by XU ZHEN®, Eternity and Evolution follow through an examination of geoculture. Eternity takes inspiration from the headless statues found in China and the west. By reproducing and grafting these statues—symbols of mankind’s triumph — together, the artist provides a new civilizational paradigm for the relationship between violence and the sublime, confrontation and coexistence, and dilapidation and imperishability. The juxtaposition of both regional statues not only alludes to art history and its manmade nomenclature, but also mankind’s colonial past, and within the work, irreconcilable differences appear to gradually crumble and dissipate.

The Evolution series develops out of the Eternity series, and although they stem from different spatiotemporal contexts, both exhibit cultural disparity against a global backdrop. Evolution further extends its creative tentacles to primitive art situated on the threshold of mainstream culture, transforming African masks and Dunhuang frescoes into a marvelous blend of cartoon and traditional art. XU ZHEN® thereby lays bare the cognitive transition generated by the Internet, in which the efficiency of hyperlinks and ever-accelerating channels of knowledge acquisition have led to complex and qualitative changes been at the very root of XU ZHEN®’s creative practice.

Cultural appropriation and shifting iconographies are recurrent in his oeuvre. The Glorious, XU ZHEN® provides spectators with various inroads into interpreting our present-day culture and social plight. Amidst circumstances where chaos is rampant, the artist’s works have a unique way of bringing to light the underlying swells of possibility. Stele sculptures conjuring the Tower of Babel; paintings refracting a bizarre, visionary aesthetic; the gloriously resplendent realm under heaven: these inspirations not only reveal a lofty ambition of leading art into the future but also serve to condensate ancient oriental wisdom.

徐震® 輝煌
開幕 | 3月25日(週一)上午11時至晚上8時 藝術家現場導賞 | 3月25日(週一)下午4時至5時 展覽 | 2019年3月25日至5月11日

貝浩登(香港)很榮幸於2019年3月25日推出徐震®個展《輝煌》。此次 個展是繼貝浩登(巴黎)《文明迭代》與貝浩登(首爾)之後合作的第三 個 個 展 ， 將 呈 現 其 最 為 經 典 的 三 個 作 品 系 列 :「 天 下 」 、「 永 生 」 與 「 進 化」，彙集架上、繪畫與雕塑不同類型的作品。自2009年建立沒頂公司 以來，徐震®以品牌的模式創作作品，利用現代化的生產機制面對當下 藝術全球化與資本化的現狀。通過將人類曆史中經典的文明元素進行 對接與衝撞，重新啟用日常視覺經驗與藝術史中的圖像符號，對藝術價 值、文化衝突與地緣政治等諸多問題展開想像。

此次展覽展出的「天下-金」在原有作品系列的基礎上創作出全新的作 品面貌。「天下」系列原本運用製作蛋糕的裱花袋，將色彩斑斕的顏料 密集而濃厚的覆蓋於畫布之上，巴羅克式的雕花叢林呈現出天下之境 的狂歡。這一系列曾作為2014年紐約軍械庫的主要視覺呈現被人們熟 知。快速消化的藝術體驗是徐震®長期使用的創作手法，同時亦是一種 諷刺，隱喻現代社會消費至上的生活方式，並意圖探測藝術商品化的邊 界。在「天下」的其他顏色系列中，揭示的是感官主義與商業化的共謀。 而此次的金色系列，雖運用最富麗堂皇的顏色，卻一反往常的展現出尊 貴深沉的美。展廳的黑牆成為谷崎潤一郎筆下的陰翳，天下的金色由此 沉潛於黑暗之中，輝映著莊嚴的光芒。天下之上的金箔，在陽光無法抵 達 的 空 間 之 中 ，仍 閃 耀 著 金 色 的 光 芒 。展 覽 以「 輝 煌 」定 名 ，既 指 涉「 天 下-金」的奪目光彩，也指藝術品象徵的成就與財富。

「永生」與「進化」作為徐震®的代表作品系列延續著地緣文化的線索 發展。「永生」取材於中西方的無頭雕塑，通過重新翻製並嫁接這些象 徵著人類造詣的塑像，為暴力與崇高、對峙與共生、殘破與永恆的關係 提供了新的文明範式。二者的並置不僅指涉了被人為命名的藝術史，也 指涉了人類殖民的過往;其中一些不可調和的分歧，似乎也開始瓦解消 散。「進化」系列由「永生」系列發展而來，它們都紮根於不同時空的文 化素材，並始終關注全球化之下的文化立異。而二者的不同在於，「進 化」系列將創作的觸角擴散到亞文化與文化邊緣地帶的原始藝術，非洲 面具與敦煌壁畫的結合，異變出卡通文化與傳統藝術混合後的奇觀。徐 震®借此呈現了互聯網發展帶來的認知轉變，在連結的便捷性與知識獲 取途徑被不斷加速之後形成的複雜質變。

後現代的質疑與思想流變是徐震®長期創作的根源，文明的挪用與象徵 意義的變異在作品中持續上演。通過此次個展《輝煌》，徐震®為我們提 供了解讀當下文化與社會現狀的不同進路。在亂象叢生的境況中，暗湧 其下的可能性被作品以獨到的方式揭露出來。巴別塔式的方碑雕塑、折 射著奇異與未來美學的繪畫和閃爍著輝煌的天下，不僅顯現出藝術創 作面向未來的雄心，也凝縮了遠古東方的智慧。