Six artists of Chinese origin are presented in the exhibition HUMANITY in ÜBERSCHAU #03 of the CSR Contemporary Show Room in Friedrichstraße. The artists, who now live in New Hampshire (USA), Shenzhen (CHN), Berlin and Düsseldorf (GER), show various positions from contemporary painting, photography, conceptual art and sculpture under the curation of Dr Huang Mei. The exhibition opens with a vernissage on Friday, 01.07.2022 from 7 to 10 pm. Five of the six artists will be present at the opening.
Image above: ÜBERSCHAU #03 HUMANITY, CSR Contemporary Show Room, Exhibition view
HUMANITY presents, among others, large-scale works by the painter Jiny Lan (*1970 in Xiuyan, Liaoning Province, China). The artist has lived in Germany since 1995 and also became known here for producing a portrait of the then German Chancellor Angela Merkel in 2018 in the posture and costume of the Empress Dowager Cixi, which FDP Chairman Christian Lindner acquired for his office.
Her latest four-part wall piece “Oh, the humanity!” (2022) will be presented exclusively and for the first time to the public at the CSR. The work shows abstracted body parts and people in the act of love. When you step back, you realise that the bodies are composed of two large Chinese characters. Taken by themselves, these stand for the words “occupy”, “weapons” and “contest”, but in this combination they mean the Chinese term for “war”. The painting, 5.60 m long and 2 m high, is part of a series of works with other characters that together form a poem. As a reaction to the current abortion debate in the USA, the artist spontaneously decided to show the work a few days ago.
Huang Jia (*1964 in Changsha, China) represents Chinese conceptual minimalism. Her works have been presented in art exhibitions worldwide. Huang Jia’s series Waiting for New Hairstyle was selected for the 1992 Guangzhou Biennale. Her early works were inspired by Francis Bacon, Paul Delvaux and Lucian Freud and focus on self-representation and construction. Since her 2007 series Doubtful Points, she has attempted to show that different psychologies and the collective unconscious can be conveyed through the simplest of visual symbols by combining basic concave and convex shapes in various combinations.
XJ Peng (*1955 in Beijing, China) shows various photopolymer prints and the interactive sculpture “A Girl with Earphones” in the exhibition. If you turn the cranks, which are attached to both sides of the head parallel to the headphones, a loud rattling sound resembling that of a ratchet is heard. The works of XJ Peng, whose full name is Xiaojia Peng, have already been presented in the USA, China and Italy.
Xingze Yu (*1976 in Xiuyan, Liaoning Province, China) is an artist and professor of architecture and urban planning who works in Beijing, Shanghai and Bochum. He presents, among other things, paintings with abstract portraits of human mental states and the so-called bubbles.
The timeless and spaceless paintings of the Düsseldorf-based painter Xianwei Zhu (*1971 in Qingdao) are distantly reminiscent of landscapes, mountains and lakes. They have a peculiar romanticism, whose origins could be located in the Zen-like emptiness.
The exhibition was curated by Dr. Huang Mei (*1964 in Hengyang, Hunan Province, China). The curator contributes to the exhibition with a conceptual work. She works with stoma bags, a taboo medical product that is needed by people who suffer from bowel cancer, for example. By transforming this object into a piece of clothing, the artist wants to create the possibility for discourse and promote a removal of taboos. In designing the clothing, she has drawn on the expertise of the Taiwanese and Berlin-based fashion designer DAMUR. During the exhibition, a performance by the artist will be shown via a screen.
The experimental exhibition format CSR Contemporary Show Room aims to create more enthusiasm for contemporary art and increase its visibility. From the end of April to the end of December 2022, the temporary art project initiated by the non-profit DEEDS.LAB will present changing exhibitions in the 400 m² exhibition space in QUARTIER 205.
WHERE?
CSR CONTEMPORARY SHOW ROOM (until 31.12.2022)
Friedrichstraße 67-70 (at Quartier 205 / front left to the road)
10117 Berlin-Mitte
www.csr.art
WHAT?
ÜBERSCHAU #03
HUMANITY
Contemporary Positions in Chinese Art
WHEN?
Opening: Friday, 01.07.2022
7 – 10 pm (public opening)
Duration: Thursday, 30 June until Saturday, 16 July 2022 – extended until Saturday, 30 July 2022
Opening hours: Mon – Sat 10:00 a. m. – 8:00 p. m. (longer during events)
Social Media:
IG @contemporaryshowroom
FB @contemporaryshowroom
#csrart #contemporaryshowroom
