Exhibition Period
26th December 2024 – 9th March 2025
Venue
SGA Three on the Bund, 3F, No.3 Zhong Shan Dong Yi Road, Shanghai
Artists
He Duoling, Mao Yan, Liu Ye, Ni Zhiqi, Ji Zhou, Shi Yong, Chen Xiaoyun, Jiang Zhuyun, Jiang Zhi, Jiang Jie, Zhao Bo, Yu Hua, Su Tong, Cheng Yongxin, Liu Liangcheng, Zhai Yongming, Ouyang Jianghe, Yan Lianke, Ma Kafai, Lu Nei, Di An, Zhou Wanjing
Planner
Wang Yu
Curator
Bao Dong, Zhu Yujie
Co-Curator
Zouzou
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This December, Hushen Art Museum is pleased to announce its first exhibition since its establishment, titled "Innocence and Experience". This exhibition brings together eleven Chinese contemporary artists He Duoling, Mao Yan, Liu Ye, Ni Zhiqi, Ji Zhou, Shi Yong, Chen Xiaoyun, Jiang Zhuyun, Jiang Zhi, Jiang Jie, Zhao Bo and eleven Chinese contemporary writer Yu Hua, Su Tong, Cheng Yongxin, Liu Liangcheng, Zhai Yongming, Ouyang Jianghe, Yan Lianke, Ma Kafai, Lu Nei, Di An, Zhou Wanjing. The exhibition is on view from 26th December until 9th March 2025.
The evolution of art history reveals the profound interplay between images and texts, enduring through the vicissitudes of time. By the 18th and 19th centuries, visual art had already birthed literary expressions of remarkable stylistic sophistication. For instance, Albrecht Dürer’s "Cognitive Imagery" transformed Iconographie into textual form, while the Romantic poet and artist William Blake fused poetry and illustration in Songs of Innocence and Experience. This seminal work explores two contrasting yet intertwined realms of the human psyche—innocence and experience. The dichotomy of innocence and experience, marked by tension and integration, illuminates the multifaceted nature of human perception and emotional engagement with the world.
Innocence represents a state of introspection, marked by purity and unblemished simplicity, akin to Songs of Innocence. It signifies an unspoiled perspective and an intuitive perception untouched by worldly experience. Innocence embodies an openness to the world, brimming with curiosity, imagination, and a spirit of exploration. Its essence lies not in ignorance but in an innate understanding unshaped by external experiences or societal norms. This state emphasizes direct sensation and primal experience, offering a raw and unfiltered reaction to life. It harbors boundless possibilities and stands as a quiet resistance against rigid modes of thought.
As the poet T.S. Eliot once remarked, "No poet, no artist of any art, has his complete meaning alone." The expressions of art and literature transcend the confines of singular perspectives, dismantling the traditional order of language. When artworks are likened to texts, their deconstruction, reconstruction, and the viewer’s interpretation collectively shape an expansive intertextuality. Within this intertwined relationship, art and literature exist in symbiosis and mutual integration, their textual meanings continually evolving. This dynamic interplay sparks new interpretations and fresh layers of understanding, enriching both mediums in the process.
This exhibition, through the dual yet interdependent paradigms of Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience, invites prominent literary figures and artists from China to explore the profound potential of the interplay between text and image. It seeks to illuminate the interactivity and symbiosis inherent in artistic creation and audience interpretation. In this dialectical process, innocence and experience are not merely binary opposites but permeate and influence one another, collectively shaping a more nuanced and multidimensional understanding of the world.
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About the Artists
He Duoling（1948, Sichuan, China)
Graduated from Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, he currently works and lives in Chengdu. His works are collected by important art institutions and collectors both in China and abroad, including the National Art Museum of China, Fukuoka Art Museum, Long Museum, Song Art Museum, Yuz Museum, Macau Museum of Art, and Contemporary Gallery Kunming, among others.
Mao Yan (1968, Hunan, China)
He graduated from the Department of Oil Painting at the Central Academy of Fine Arts. In his works, the extreme technical mastery and the meticulous depiction, as delicate as nerve endings, reveal a realm where form and spirit are integrated, embodying the perfection pursued in portrait art.
Liu Ye (1964, Beijing, China)
Liu Ye graduated from the Central Academy of Fine Arts and Universität der Künste Berlin. His works are characterized by simple compositions, vibrant colors, and playful themes, forming a unique artistic style. This distinctive approach infuses his paintings with a strong sense of loneliness and detachment, exuding a rich surrealistic quality.
Ni Zhiqi (1957, Shanghai, China)
He studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Belgium, where he pursued postgraduate studies and won the first prize at the Karel Veslat Art Exhibition in Belgium. He is currently a professor at the School of Design, the discipline leader and the art director of the Public Art program, East China Normal University. His works are widely collected.
Ji Zhou (1970, Beijing, China)
He graduated from the Printmaking Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 1994 and obtained a Master of Arts degree from Université Paris I - Panthéon-Sorbonne in 2005. He currently lives and works in Beijing.
Shi Yong (1963, Shanghai, China)
He is a representative figure of contemporary Chinese artists who first started working with installation and video media. His artworks cover a wide range of mediums including performance, video, and installation. His earliest artistic practices focused on revealing the subtlety of our reality and the inherent tension of the "system". At the end of the 1990s, he began focusing on the idea of Shanghai’s transformations under the Chinese economic reform, which contributed to a discussion of globalization and consumerism.
Chen Xiaoyun (1971, Hubei, China)
He graduated from the Sculpture Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2011 and currently lives and works in Hangzhou. His works span multiple fields, including video, installation, and painting, making him one of the important artists in China’s experimental art scene.
Jiang Zhuyun (1984, Zhejiang, China)
He currently lives and works in Hangzhou and Beijing. In 2017, he was shortlisted for the "Huayu Youth Award" at the 5th Sanya Art Season. His creative and research focus spans various media and forms, including installation, performance, digital networks, sound, and programming.
Jiang Zhi (1971, Hunan, China)
He graduated from China Academy of Art in 1995. He has long been deeply engaged with various contemporary social and cultural issues, positioned at the intersection of poetics and sociology. His focus lies in exploring how to transform familiar daily life and personal experiences into the textual content of his works.
Jiang Jie
A professor in the Sculpture Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, she has been active at the forefront of contemporary experimental art in China since the early 1990s. She has received numerous awards, including the 2009 Martell Extraordinary Art Personality Award, the 2009 COSMOPOLITAN Fashion Woman of the Year Award, and the 2015 China ACC Art Award Nominee Award, among others.
Zhao Bo (1984, Shenyang, China)
Zhao Bo graduated from the Oil Painting Department of Luxun Academy of Fine Arts, earning a Bachelor of Arts in 2007 and a Master’s degree in 2011. During his studies, he also had an exchange at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts in Norway. He currently lives and works in Shenyang. Zhao Bo's works focus on the impact of the digital revolution on the postmodern societal landscape. By breaking the temporal and spatial boundaries between the virtual world and the real world, he intertwines them in a chaotic way, giving his narrative compositions an epic scale and a sense of sublimity.
Yu Hua (1960, Zhejiang, China)
As a representative figure of contemporary avant-garde Chinese literature, he broke traditional linguistic conventions, using techniques such as dislocated time and space, and depicting life’s suffering through graphic violence. Yu Hua has published numerous works that have had a significant impact on the global literary scene. His works have earned him various prestigious awards, including the Yasnaya Polyana Literary Award for Best Foreign Language Book in Russia.
Su Tong (1963, Jiangsu, China)
He began publishing works in 1983. In 1985, he published the novel "The Escape of 1934". In 1988, he released the novel "Wives and Concubines". In 2015, he won the 9th Mao Dun Literature Prize for his novel "The Yellow Sparrow". In 2019, "The Yellow Sparrow" was included in the "70 Years, 70 Novels of New China" collection.
Cheng Yongxin (1958, Shanghai, China)
After graduating from Fudan University in 1983, he was assigned to the magazine "Harvest" , where he served as editor, associate editor, and eventually editor-in-chief. He is regarded by many Chinese writers as the "avant-garde among avant-gardes", the "writer among writers", and the "editor among editors". His work "The Foreign Land" won the Excellent Short Story Award at the 4th Yangtze River Literature Biennale.
Liu Liangcheng (1962, Xinjiang, China)
He is hailed as "the last essayist of 20th-century China" and "the philosopher of the countryside". In 2015, he won the Essay Award at the 16th Baihua Literature Award. In 2023, he was awarded the 11th Mao Dun Literature Prize for his work "Benba".
Zhai Yongming (1955, Sichuan, China)
Her creative work extends beyond poetry to include music, theater, painting, and other artistic fields. She won the "Zhongkun International Poetry Award · A Prize" in 2007 and the Ceppo Pistoia International Literary Award in Italy in 2011. She is acclaimed in the international poetry world as "one of the greatest poets of our time".
Ouyang Jianghe (1956, Sichuan, China)
He began publishing poetry in 1979, with representative works including "Glass Factory", "Love in the Planned Economy Era", "Evening Across the Square", "The Last Illusion", "The Listening and Conversations of the Person in the Chair", "Café", and "Snow". His writing philosophy has had a significant influence on China's poetry scene since the 1990s. He currently resides in Beijing.
Yan Lianke (1958, Henan, China)
In 1997, he published the novella "Year, Month, Day". In 2003, he won the Third Lao She Literary Award. In 2014, he received the Franz Kafka Prize. In 2020, he was awarded the 7th Newman Prize for Chinese Literature. In 2021, he received the Royal Society of Literature International Writers Lifetime Achievement Award.
Ma Kafai (1963, Hong Kong, China)
He is a Hong Kong media personality, columnist, and cultural critic. He is currently the Assistant Director of the China Culture Center at City University of Hong Kong and has published several books. In 2016, he released his first novel "Dragon's Head and Phoenix's Tail", which won multiple awards, including the Taipei International Book Fair Award and the Hong Kong Book Award.
Lu Nei (1973, Jiangsu, China)
In 2013, he won the inaugural People's Literature New Writer Award for his work "A Tree Grows in Daicheng". In 2016, he was named the Annual Novelist at the Chinese Literature Media Awards for "Mercy" and was praised by Southern People Weekly for "depicting the dignity and compassion of individuals caught in the tide of the times and the cycle of karma." In 2022, he won the 5th Shi Nai'an Literary Award for his novel "Mist Walker."
Di An (1983, Shanxi, China)
In 2008, he won the inaugural "Chinese Novels Biennial Award" from Selected Stories for his novel "Nirvana". In 2009, he published the novel "The Western Decision", which earned him the 8th Chinese Literature Media Awards "Most Promising Newcomer" title. In 2018, he published the novel "Jingheng Street", which won the People's Literature Award for Long Novel.
Zhou Wanjing (1990, Beijing, China)
Since 2009, she has been engaged in film scriptwriting and art criticism. In 2012, he won the Hong Kong City Literary Award and the Hong Kong SAR Government Talent Development Award. In 2019, she received the 45th Hong Kong Youth Literature Award and the Shanhua Literary Biennial Newcomer Award.
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Gallery
