November 17, 2009, Beijing, China
 he Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (UCCA) presents Breaking Forecast: 8 Key Figures of China’s New Generation Artists, a groundbreaking exhibition showcasing a comprehensive look at the future of contemporary art in China. The exhibition will gather an exciting group of emerging and mid-career artists working throughout China today: Cao Fei, Chu Yun, Liu Wei, Made In, Qiu Zhijie, Sun Yuan & Peng Yu, Yang Fudong and Zheng Guogu.
As UCCA’s first exhibition reviewed the history of contemporary art in China, two years later, Breaking Forecast focuses on its future, marking this show as a milestone towards the development of UCCA as an artistic organization with a global vision.
 Breaking Forecast brings together an influential group, who collectively embody the artistic thinking and creative vitality of Chinese artists in this new century. Utilizing a group exhibition to bring out the impact and influence representative of the new generation, the exhibition indicates that China’s contemporary scene is both energized and active.
"The exhibition speaks about what is the history of the present, in relation to what is going on now in China. Rather than offering an exhaustive list, this exhibition concentrates on artists who are already influential for their generation, as well as for a younger generation,” says Jérôme Sans, UCCA Director. “Breaking Forecast is the celebration of UCCA’s two year anniversary. It affirms UCCA’s support and commitment to the development and promotion of the Chinese art scene, for both established and upcoming artists alike.”
China’s new generation artists are flexible, open-minded, and free from the weight of local pressure and obsession. They have renewed methods of thinking and addressing problems, creating relevant art using a vocabulary that global audiences are also able to understand, and relate to. Experts in a range of media, this show offers a wide scope of what the new generation in China is developing. The artists are versatile, and apply suitable media towards a certain concept or idea – Breaking Forecast will include works combining the genres of painting, installation, performance, photography and film.
 The showing will consist of eight separate solo shows in one unified exhibition, purposefully placed to fit together like an intricate puzzle. Visitors will be taken on an epic journey through every corner of UCCA as artwork fills the exhibition spaces, facilities, and rooms. Displaying both new and recent works, Breaking Forecast affirms UCCA’s role as a production center, to help artists develop their talents, and to give them an opportunity to create something new.
Artists’ talks and workshops will be organized accompanying this exhibition to provide in-depth opportunities for the public to communicate with the artists, and to learn more about the ideas and stories behind their works.
The exhibition has been made possible with the support of LVMH / Moët Hennessy. Louis Vuitton.
Below are some images of works from the exhibition. For more updates please visit UCCA website: www.ucca.org.cn
Sun Yuan was born in 1972 in Beijing, China. Peng Yu Was born in 1974 in Heilongjiang, China. Both graduated from the oil painting department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts and live and work in Beijing. They are one of the most important artistic groups in China’s contemporary art scene.
Sun Yuan & Peng Yu, Installation, Dimensions variable, 2009
Each person thinks of one thing, when putting them together, an expressive relationship will be built in between.
Sun Yuan & Peng Yu, <Tomorrow>, Installation, Fiberglass, silica gel, simulation of sculpture, 2006
Tomorrow was a project implemented during the Liverpool Biennale 2006. Four life-like sculptures in the from of elderly Caucasian males donning business suits. They were then thrown into the water of Albert Dock. The surface of this lake was the holy place where British pioneer rock n’ roll hand ,the Beatles, became famous. On the other side of the bank is the Beatles Museum. These four sculptures had their faces floated downward on the water surface. They created a lot of attention, and resulted in a bit of a misunderstandings between the chairman of the biennale and the police chief. Who on earth were “they”?
Cao Fei was born in 1978 in Guangzhou. China. She graduated from Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts and currently lives and works in Beijing, Her art often derives its direction form the popular culture of the moment, expressed through her particular vision; the works embody the feelings and social environment of china’s modern urban youth. Major works include Hip Hop, Whose Utopia?, Cosplayers and RMB City.
Cao Fei, <RMB City>, Video Installation, 10 x 10 x 7 m, 2009
The Birth of RMB City is in some ways a companion piece to the original ‘RMB City Planning’ video where Cao Fei (SL: China Tracy) first sketched out her plans for RMB City, an experimental platform and fantasy of Chinese urbanism in the online word of second Life. In the first, she presented a virtual vision of a virtual city – which is of course, is still entirely virtual. The ambitious energy and spectacle of this piece connects to eternal concepts about human creation against the void, but at the same time reinforces the fragility of these endeavors. Even when we encounter the real, the real is also virtual, and can disappear just as easily.
Chu Yun was born in 1977 in Jiangxi, China. He graduated from the Chinese painting department of Sichuan Fine Arts Academy, and currently lives and works in Beijing. His work often take as their focus personal daily life and the experience of the individual. His major works include Constellation and Unspeakable Happiness.
Chu Yun, <Make a Great Work>, Installation, Flowers, plants, Diameter 600cm, Height 145cm, 2009
Make a Great Work
1. Make a parterre with flowers and plants in the exhibition space.
2. The Chinese characters for ‘Make a Great Work’ will be placed in the middle of the parterre.
Chu Yun, <Constellation>, Installation, Mixed media, Size variable, 2006
You walk into a dark room. When you stand there you will see a great number of flashing lights. As your eyes get accustomed to the darkness you will become aware they all come from domestic electrical appliances. The lights come from the machines that are malfunctioning, wired to be in either “pause” or “error” mode. All the appliances have been collected from second-hand markets by Chu Yun and shape the landscape that constitutes the realm Constellation.
Liu Wei was born in 1972 in Beijing, China. He graduated from China Academy of Art, and currently lives and works in Beijing. His works interpret the relationship between space and objects, the emotion of the age, etc. Major work include Love it. Bite it, Purple Haze, The Outcast, and Discovery.
Liu Wei, <Red Disturbs Green>, Installation, 723 x 100 x 354 cm, 2009
Liu Wei, <w-Iow>, Installation, Size variable, 2009
The truth of this is in the way that you occupy a moment of its time, you give a fixed shape to this one moment, and thus it becomes real. This reality arises from what is missing; it occupies the space of your uncertainty. It’s only a formula, actually, a model of reality. What I have done is created variables that lend this formula existential significance –this is not an interpretation of the work, it is a part of the work. I don’t believe in randomness; I can only understand the world through certainty and fixed limits.
Madeln (Culture Ltd.) is a multi – functional company established in 2009 by Xu Zhen, dedicated to artistic, production, dissemination, support and curation.
Xu Zhen, <In Just a Blink of an Eye>, Performance, Iron stand, several performers, 2005
Once gravity is lost, you may find some people nearly falling down on the ground, but in this real space, they have been “solidified” in a period of time .It reveals the uncertainty of self existence, and the authenticity of the viewers’ experience.
MadeIn, <To See Is An Obstacle>, Installation, 22 x 1.8 x 0.02 m, 2009
This work is derived from an unknown statistical table. Madeln made direct etchings on a sheet of plate glass, creating a three – dimensional installation piece that appears in an exaggerated fashion in front of viewers.
Qiu Zhijie was born in 1969 in Zhangzhou, Fujian Province, China, He graduated from the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts (now China Academy of Art, CAA), and currently lives and works between Beijing and Hangzhu. His work spans multiple media including ink painting, video, performance, and installation. His major works include Copying Lanting Xu 1000 Times and Light Calligraphy.
Qiu Zhijie, <All Those Whom I Have Forgotten>, Installation, Iron, ink, iron rails, railroad ties, water pump, bird specimen, 15 x 10 x 7.5 m, 2009
Qiu Zhijie, <Ataraxic of Zhuang Zi>, Installation, 500 × 250 ×250 cm, 2008
A large transparent glass gourd is put on the floor of the exhibition hall. At the mouth of the gourd, there is an enlarged syringe needle made of stainless steel. Several black butterflies are put into the gourd that can breathe through the pinhole of the needle.
Yang Fudong was born in 1971 in Beijing, China .He graduated from the oil painting department of China Academy f Art and lives and works in Shanghai. His works are created using the techniques of film to reflect the spiritual poverty of a new generation of intellectuals and the predicament of ordinary individuals in society. Major works include No Snow on the Broken Bridge and Seven Intellectuals in Bamboo Forest.
Yang Fudong, <Dawn Mist>, Separation Faith, Installation, 35mm B&W film, 180 mins, 2009
There may be three ways of understanding Dawn Mist, Separation Faith:
The first “faith” is religious faith, indicating the sense of loss and confusion that follows an escape from religion.
The second “faith” is belief; what comes after you have escaped or left behind the things you once believed in?
The third “faith” represents the tongue of the snake. When the snake flicks out its tongue, it indicates a threat. As this “threat” approaches, do you still retain you beliefs? In that instant, how do you judge?
Dawn Mist, Separation Faith may be a sort of “film in progress” as the process of filming has become the film itself. It is done with no editing, so that what is seen is the original material. All the errors made during the whole filming process (the NG part) become evident as a kind of “beauty”.
Zheng Guogu was born in 1970 in Yangjiang, Guangdong province, China. He graduated from the printmaking department of the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, and currently lives and works in Yangjiang. His works include installation, photography and paintings, all of which record the lives of Chinese youth and a social reality predicated on the entanglement of media and consumption. Major works include Rust for Another Two Thousand Years, Factory, and My Home is a Museum.
Zheng Guogu, <Sense of Empire>, Installation, 1400 x 1400 x 330 cm, 2009
This is a space that can sense. The audience may enter by one of the four sensor doors, and experience the strange transplanted scenes of the “Age of Empire” as though they were truly there. (Zheng Guogu, 2009)
In 2004, the Chinese artist Zheng Guogu bought nearly 20,000 square meters of land in the suburbs of his hometown Yangjiang, and began his own construction of ‘Empire.’ Reflecting the computer game ‘Age of Empires,’ ‘Empire’ in the reality integrates more complicated spatial modalities and social relations. It is not a fixed, viewable work enclosed within an interior space, but a project that extends into an even truer living space, which comprises the entire process of dwelling in a spatial location, from conceptual ideal to practical implementation to day-to-day living.
|
