Mar 05 - Mar 22, 2011
Press Release
CURATOR: GU ZHENQING
EXHIBITION DIRECTOR: SUN YONGZENG
EXECUTIVE CURATOR: DAI ZHUOQUN
ASSISTANT CURATORS: LI WEIWEI, ZHANG ZHIXIN
ADMINISTRATIVE DIRECTORS: SUN YONGQING, FU CHUNLAI
PR ASSISTANTS: LIU CHANG, LI WEIWEI
SPONSOR: WHITEBOXMUSEUMOF ART
OPENING: 16:30, SATURDAY, 5th MARCH, 2011
DATES: 5th MARCH, 2011 TO 22nd MARCH, 2011
MUSEUM OPENING HOURS: 10:00- 18:00, TUESDAY- SUNDAY
VENUE: WHITEBOXMUSEUM OF ART, 798 ART DIST.,NO.2
JIUXIANQIAO ROAD, CHAOYANG DIST.,BEIJING,CHINA
CONTACT US: +86-10-5978 4801
FOR MORE INFORMATION PLEASE VISIT OUR WEBSITE: www.798whitebox.com
Curator Article
Gu Zhenqing
The East Is Red is a concept that has been obsessing Artist Xu Hongming for a long time. He is very fascinated in the red color of the Chinese natural mineral pigments. Recently, by racking his brains and employing in his own paintings as well, Xu Hongming works hard everyday in order to apply this China Red to utmost. He is trying to extract a kind of finest red quality from his introspected spiritual image and let the red become purer, brighter and more splendid. This kind of red, which is so distinctive of an artist’s spiritual personality, seems to be matched and defined only by the mineral red that he is familiar with. By casual methods, artists control over the coloring process on the paintings, with color spread and layers of shades and density, to create an abstract language vivid as clouds. Although Xu Hongming’s works keep a strong visual attraction for viewers, he focuses more on the process of creation other than on the result. What he deliberately pursues is not the visual effect that his paintings might create but the spiritual reservation that is strengthened in the day-after-day hard work of art. He tries to improvise his nature through this kind of repetitive self-cultivation. Human nature tends to long for eternal freedom. To bear freedom is undoubtedly the ultimate core personal value demand of Xu Hongming. As for Xu Hongming, the essential relatedness with shades and density is no longer the aesthetic experience or norms, instead, the dimensions and limits that the spiritual freedom could go up to.
Xu Hongming does not care about the risk that the term The East Is Red might be read literally, or farfetchedly. The fact is, neither the red classics in the political context in China nor the misunderstanding of orientalism in the modern Western social context has ever be a historical shielding or a current intervention upon artists. In face with civilization traditions and realistic life, Xu Hongming is not afraid of the existing norms nor of the argument of concept and entity since the norms brings about his desire to challenge and the argument helps him find his way in thinking and sublating.
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