Transcendence and Ren Jian
General Exhibition Curator: Yan Weixin
Exhibition Advisors: Zhang Zikang, Nicola Togneri, Fan Bo
Exhibition Curator: Sun Dongdong
General Exhibition Executor: Shen Tianshu
Exhibition Supervisor: Yang Kun, Tang Yu, Dong Daozi
Space Design: Liang Chen
Organizer: Shenzhen Museum of Contemporary Art and Urban Planning
Academic Support: Central Academy of Fine Arts
Co-organisers: Art Museum of Central Academy of Fine Arts, Institute of Science and Technology of Central Academy of Fine Arts, Lisson Gallery, Lingnan Fine Arts Publishing House
Time
05/08/2021-15/09/2021
Location
Ground Floor, Shenzhen Museum of Contemporary Art and Urban Planning
Preface
Su Xinping and Christopher Le Brun, a Chinese artist and a British artist, had an unexpected encounter in the art of printmaking, which led to this dialogue of art in Shenzhen's "2PM".
For Su Xinping, printmaking is like a probe to the art world, it is both the starting point of his art career and the basis to expand the frontiers of his art media. Whether it is painting, sculpture or video art, all of them reflect his experience in the medium of printmaking.
Different from Su Xinping, Christopher's interest in printmaking is rooted in the principle of flatness established by western modern art. In his paintings, the experience of printmaking is a form and purport related to the texture of the picture and material.
The two artists have very different conceptual paths. For Su Xinping, printmaking points to the tangible world of experience; while for Christophe, printmaking leads to the basal world of perception. This differentiation in artistic practice is not only a difference in aesthetic orientation, but more importantly, a clear reflection on the modernity narrative represented by the two artists.
As the title of the exhibition suggests, the tension between spirituality and reality contained in "Transcendence and Ren Jian" hovers between lightness and heaviness, deftness and straightness, like a circular arch stretching from two sides, finally merging in the name of art.
--Curator: Sun Dongdong
Su Xinping
Su Xinping, a Chinese contemporary artist, who was born in Jining city of Inner Mongolia in 1960. He performed military service in 1977; graduated from Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts, got the master’s degree and kept at school as a teacher. He successively held the post of the chairman at Beijing Academy of Fine Arts of engraving department, the dean of design school. And now he is the associate dean at Beijing Academy of Fine Arts, professor, and doctoral tutor.
Both the vivid learning of grassland and experience of serving in the army in the early years made Su impressed by the lonely state of land, sky and psychology. Su created a great number of engravings on this subject, which shows a strength of artistic spirits and an intensity of living willpower. Due to the sensitive observation about the pains during Chinese social transformation, Su tentatively responded a series of social issues like desires, spirits and ideological crisis exerting oil painting, sketch and other approaches of direct paintings. With a deeper understanding of how himself works, Su embraced the self-reflection and continuous consultation of traditional culture into the practical field, which initiates the thinking on both intertextuality between arts and commonplace and effective lockstep in time and mind.
His artworks have ever been collected by the British Museum, Ashmolean Museum at University of Oxford, Ludwig Art Museum, Portland Art Museum, San Francisco Museum, Fukuoka Art Museum, National Museum of Australia, National Art Museum of China, Shanghai Art Museum, Central Academy of Fine Arts, etc.
Christopher Le Brun
Christopher Le Brun, a painter, printmaker and sculptor, born in Portsmouth in 1951. He trained at the Slade and Chelsea Schools of Art, London. He has served as a trustee of major British art institutions: Tate, National Gallery, Dulwich Picture Gallery, the Royal Drawing School and the National Portrait Gallery. He was elected the inaugural Professor of Drawing at the Royal Academy of Arts in 2000. Subsequently elected President from 2011-2019, he oversaw the most significant redevelopment in the Academy’s 250 year history and is widely acknowledged as having revitalised the Academy’s reputation.
Le Brun was awarded a Knighthood in the 2021 New Year Honours List for services to art.
His work is characterised by an adherence to the essential values of touch, light, space and colour while maintaining a questioning and strongly individual stance in relation to contemporary art history. His art is rooted in the long tradition of the English appreciation of landscape and nature, whether expressed in painting, poetry or music, which provide a common ground frequently referred to throughout his work.
His work can be found in museum collections including the Museum of Modern Art and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Yale Center for British Art, New Haven; Tate, the V&A and the British Museum, London; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney.