Zhang Yanzi’s Solo Exhibition “The Remedy” organized by the Today Art Museum will be held at Gallery 3 of the Today Art Museum from 25 September through to 9 October, 2013. The exhibition will present Zhang Yanzi’s latest works over the last three years, a total of over one hundred works. Her works on display will include, Registration series, The Remedy series, Qi(Flow of Energy), OK, Intrepidity and Who’s Remedy series, Aches, Itches, Numbness and etc. Her creations continue to be in ink and wash and she has kept employing these as the main medium, supplemented by mixed media, installation, ready-made materials, handmade and so on.

Since her last solo exhibition “Walk While Stepping on the Gauze” in Shanghai Art Museum in 2010, her art has experienced several steps of transformation in three years. What is rare and indeed deserving praise is that the spirit of her art has kept its honesty and sincerity. Through the changes, we see the artist’s clear sequence of thoughts. This exhibition pulls together exhibits of a dramatic transformation in her art career.

From her solo show of “Walk While Stepping on the Gauze”, we saw a female artist with subtle observation, and her art emphasized in expressing her feelings on life. Turning from literati interests of ink and wash to thoughts on the fragility and suffering of life, Zhang Yanzi brings her works to this new solo exhibition. From High Noon(2009), Chinks of Sunlight(2010), Registration(2012) to The Remedy series(2013), we will see that the artist has stepped away from her personal vision, and shows her deep concern for the social and human subject. Interestingly, her concern of the subject has been expressed in a subtle and unique way, just like a needle, it might inadvertently hit at the spectators’ acupoints.

From the past to the present, Zhang Yanzi’s series of creations are independent and context-dependent at the same time. The cultivation and imaginative use of the formal language of ink and wash have penetrated through her creations. Although she starts from freehand figure painting, she seems particularly interested in “something” outside the “figures”. From her series creation of Hanging on the Wall and High Noon in 2009, her images have tended to be simple, enshrouded with a kind of everlasting atmosphere. “The swaying clothes in the pictures that Zhang Yanzi has worked on, are somewhat similar to a blank lens in films. Bodies and figures are always absent, but their flavors remain there through all, “ Pi Li said so.

The Registration series on display is a major transformation in Zhang’s creative career. This is a series of simple paintings she has been working on since 2012. She classified the medical facilities, pills and capsules to represent the medical civilization of modern society into a visual pedigree, exhibiting them in a way according to the noumenon of ink and wash. Rather than portraying the aches and suffering outside of the body directly, she tracks down the “remedy” which can comfort people from the inside, thus “suffering” ascends to a kind of metaphysical concern.

The Remedy is another new series she created after the Registration series. From Registration to The Remedy, Zhang Yanzi elevates the metaphor of medical “comforts” to the level of religious redemption. The same train of thought can be found in OK, Intrepidity. What is special is that Zhang Yanzi depicts directly the images of Buddha on analgesic plasters. The artist imagines herself as a painter of the Mogao Grottoes, completed her work piously day by day, the painting process, for the artist, is also a process for praying for inner peace. The Remedy series will be exhibited in the form of installation during the exhibition, “When analgesic plasters affix the therapeutic function to the psychologically healing function of religious statues, and then are arranged to be the niche for the statue of Buddha, divinity and humanity are confused, thus it is indefinable to tell when it is consecrated as feeling unfair for worldly pain or for religious emotions. Full to the brim, diffusing with herbal medicines, the illusions caused by a visual sense and olfactory sensation are far more than could be told by linguistic media. “(Xu Lei)

Other works are extended from this convey of her consistent thinking too. Who’s Remedy series is endowed with both metaphorical ready-made “capsule beads” and images and symbols comforting people depicted on analgesic notes. Aches, Itches, and Numbness, these works in a large size appear as a clear clue gradually for the subjects as prescripts, scriptures and ants as Zhang Yanzi portrayed them. As curator Xu Lei commented, “Zhang Yanzi’s stroke gives a vague clue, which is a road of compassion, deception and salvation.”

Ever since traditional Chinese ink and wash paintings have been included in the discussions on the contemporary art, the involvement of ink and wash painting into the contemporary, it remains a debatable issue. For a long time, discussion about “New Ink and Wash”, “Modern Ink and Wash” and “Urban Ink and Wash” emerge constantly in contemporary art circles. While Zhang Yanzi’s work might provide some kind of illustration or open another gate, “Compared to the intention that Urban Ink strives for the effectiveness of intervention in the current issues by transforming brush and ink, these works created by Zhang Yanzi do not bear the conceptual pressure that ‘contemporary ink must portray the contemporary’. Her strategy is that she turns about dextrously, turning the focus of her work from portraying ‘worldly possessions’ to describing ‘things within the body’. And this may initiate a new topic that ink and wash painting has to face when confronted with contemporary society, which is more urgent than the transformation of languages. “(Pi Li)

About the exhibition

Curator: Xu Lei

Organizer: Today Art Museum

Co-organizer: SUDLAB Arte Contemporanea

Dates: 25 September - 9 October, 2013

Opening Ceremony: 25 September, 15:30

Venue: Gallery 3, Today Art Museum, Beijing

Address: Today Art Museum, Building 4, Pingod Community, No.32 Baiziwan Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing.

Public Educational Activities

“My Remedy” Children Creative Workshop

During the exhibition, related educational activities will be held by the Children Art Education Workshop on site. Zhang Yanzi will interpret her work and share her experiences with children and their parents, while inspiring them to create new works with “My Remedy” as their theme. The remedy in Children’s eyes might be a lollipop, might be a kiss from mum, might be a dreaming school full of fun, might be...This kind of innocent world with rich expressions might be another show of the pure heart of the artists. Zheng Qinyan who is in charge of the studio thinks that Today Art Museum has been engaged in the highlighting of public and educational functions of museums, it attracts children to visit different exhibitions and closely interacts with artists, which in turn will promote their artistic taste as well as their comprehension of art. The special materials and unique expressions Zhang Yanzi has utilized in her work presents something fresh and new, what’s more they will inspire young hearts to look upon the world from another perspective, experience the delight in creations. Thus it will be a meaningful educational activity with an art experience.

Courtesy of the artist and CAFA ART INFO.