Vanguard Gallery is pleased to present works by Xiao Jiang, Liao Fei, Chen Xingye, Gresham Tapiwa Nyaude, Yuki Onodera, Antoni Muntadas at ART021 Shanghai Contemporary Art Fair 2022 from 10th to 13th November at Booth W17.
VIP PREVIEW PUBLIC DAYS
2022.11.10 14:00-20:00 2022.11.12 11:00-18:00
2022.11.11 13:00-20:00 2022.11.13 11:00-18:00
At the first glance at Xiao Jiang’s works, one would be encompassed with the sharp atmosphere. Something is left unsaid by his works, expressing the power in silence. Xiao Jiang’s works have drawn materials from episodes of movies and real life which are so familiar to people that are easily ignored. Under the artist’s unique perspective, they are cut out and recombined. Xiao takes inspiration from reality but structures them into an absolute fantasy world, leading the audience to dislocated visionary feelings.
Liao Fei explores the relationship and tension in material materials in his works – between reality and geometry, between cognition and mysticism, between duality and simplification. While drawing attention to the broader concepts related to these relationships, his works also reveal the metaphysical temperament contained in everyday materials. Liao Fei explores the relationship and tension in material materials in his works – between reality and geometry, between cognition and mysticism, between duality and simplification. While drawing attention to the broader concepts related to these relationships, his works also reveal the metaphysical temperament contained in everyday materials.
The paintings of Chen Xingye reveal his fascination towards apes, creatures that have mirror effect for human beings. The artist uses contemporary expression to describe his imagination for the primeval age as a modern man, but also for the future. The exaggerated muscular body is undoubtedly the totem of primitive power. Is there same connection between the primeval age and present under the illusion of power? “Ape” is just the object of imagination, thus these imagined images reflect our self-examination and the balance between ourselves and present environment, reality and nihility, past and future.
Born and raised in Mbare, Gresham works against the sweeping identity that has been defined by the voice of the state. His images oscillate between figuration, abstraction and hallucination, drawing from the restless energy of the ghetto. Mbare is Harare’s and perhaps Zimbabwe’s most vibrant and notorious ghetto. Allegedly ridden with hooliganism, violence and prostitution, Mbare is said to parallel the conditions of Harare for Zimbabweans during the colonial segregation era (in respect of its hardship and quality of living space). To this day Mbare retains the character of a port city with its trade, shady deals and otherwise bustle of unremitting human traffic amid urban decay. Living on the verge between survival and demise has been somewhat of a call to poetry, at times proving brutal and at others sentimental or cynically satirical. In his works, symbolic collapsed figures, floors and chairs are everywhere. With irony, he talks about social issues such as class inequality and consumer culture in the urban environment without concealment.
Yuki Onodera is an artist who masters photography that takes form in contemporary art. She uses methods such as clipping newspaper, and machining the works while completing her creation using silver salts photography. She uses any possible method to realize her works, whether this means taking photographs with a marble inside her camera, or creating a story out of a legend and traveling to the ends of the earth to shoot it. Onodera’s experimental work, which does not fit within schemas of “photography” often poses two questions: what is photography, and what can be done through it?
Antoni Muntadas is an internationally acclaimed pioneer of media art and conceptual art. Through his works, Muntadas addresses social, political and communication issues such as the relationship between public and private space within social frameworks, and investigates channels of information and the ways they may be used to censor or promulgate ideas. His projects are presented in different media including photography, video, publications, the Internet, installations and urban interventions.
INSTALLATION VIEW
