Between Art Lab will set up a new space in Huizhi International Commercial Center of Shanghai at the very beginning of 2018. The new space will launch the solo exhibition of Jin Yangping as its first step, that is, Curtain Painting: Tranquilization. Artist Jin Yangping has adopted the approaches of close-up and magnifying lens in his recent works. Confronted with magical and witty reality at present, the artist will interpret and perform the human scene plays through curtain painting. The exhibition will open to the public on January 19, 2018.

Jin Yangping has been all along considering such an issue about what kind of an era we live in. As a teacher at the Department of Oil Painting of China Academy of Art, Jin is much common to be labeled with excellent skills but restriction on skills because his works are likely to be categorized with a college style out of the masses’ stereotype. However, that only develops prejudice. As a matter of fact, like a great ingenuity, he is such an interesting person, puts aside all the familiarity and commonplace, and starts his sailing plans of deconstruction and adventure with Sisyphus’s stubbornness.

Perhaps it’s the times that trigger the corresponding alertness. Jin Yangping, born in the 1970s, boasts hard-to-clarify attributes of intergenerational genre. In another word, deep concern for the status quo of the society, sense of natural participation of senior artists. and diverse perspectives and expression of relative individuality of younger artists are all reflected in his works. As far as he is concerned, enhancing a localized close-up and a magical immersion only satisfies the requirement of image performance, whereas the ultimate goal is to inspect such factors as “me”, “us” and “our times” through images. As a result, image viewing has become an important role in Mr. Jin’s works. In recent years, his creation has increasingly derailed with conventional painting materials. Such symbols as curtains, shower curtains that have been attached to the orientation due to the development of civilization have supported background of pictures. The informational nature of the material itself and the self-alienation image are intertwined to mix a complex visual system.

It seems that the methodology combining both empiricism and criticism constitutes the thinking essence of Mr. Jin’s works. Either some more prone to create play senses and conflict, such as the Blade Holder, Onlookers and Hitting Balloon ,or some presenting their subjects by symbols, but dissolve the spatio-temporal relationship, namely A Buddha’s mouth but a viper's heart and Luck gleaming. There exists subtle connection between them: it seems to refer to reality, but a clear correspondence with the reality can’t be established on the basis of these generalized images; it seems to be derived from the artist’s inner world, but the entire era is mirrored in the circle between viewing and the viewed. This serves as the best explanation of social ecology as a sample of postmodern society. The artists maintain an unknown level of fragmented anxiety in their innermost heart even though they are not positioned at the bottom or top of society. Although we are far away from the era only fulfilled the purpose of survival, the explosive information originated from cultural demands still threatens people who have not yet found the subjectivity of themselves. The meta-discourse of “destructive hyperconformity” proposed by Jean Baudrillard metaphorizes the self-disillusionment caused by social expansion, while the concept of pluralism of Gilles Louis Rene Deleuze paves the new way for us. That is to say, it’s the disorder that represents the order of this era, so deconstruction of direction has become a possible exploration way.

In fact, we had no intention to explore whether this was a good era, but Jin indeed show, in his own works, a high degree of sensitivity to social and self-expression of a few conscious people. As Marshall McLuhan stated in Understanding Media that “The serious artist is the only person able to encounter technology with impunity, just because he is an expert aware of the changes in sense perception.” And we are more willing to believe order will emerge from continuous work eventually.

About the exhibition

Dates: Jan 19, 2018 – Mar 20, 2018

Opening: Jan 19, 2018, 10:00

Venue: Between Art Lab

Courtesy of the artist and Between Art Lab, for further information please visit www.betweenartlab.com.