At 3:00 pm on May 23, 2014, Red Brick Contemporary Art Museum inaugural exhibition – “Tales from the Taiping Era” was officially unveiled. At the press conference of the exhibition, Director Yan Shijie, academic adviser Gao Shiming and curator Guo Xiaoyan and Zhang Jianling, artist Yung Ho Zhang and the potential writer Zhu Fa spoke from different perspectives. Director Yan Shijie said he hoped the exhibition was not only a spatial exhibition, but also an exhibition through history and space, dispersed throughout the exhibition space and the garden.

The opening ceremony was held at the round hall of Red Brick Art Museum, and presided over by Gong Jian, Deputy Director of Red Brick Art Museum, after the end of Fan Di’an’s speech, Director of National Art Museum of China, Gao Shiming briefly introduced and narrated the exhibition of “Tale from Taiping Era”, and the famous Taiwan artist Chen Chieh-Jen gave a speech on behalf of the artists.

As the inaugural exhibition of Red Brick Art Museum – “Tales from the Taiping Era” specially invited a total of 10 artists including Huang Yongping, Wu Shanzhuan & Inga Svala Thorsdottir, Yung Ho Chang, Wang Jianwei, Chen Chieh-Jen, Qiu Zhijie, Yang Fudong, Pak Sheung Chuen, and two young artists Feng Bingyi, and Guo Xi to jointly participate inthe exhibition, to respectively feature their latest works of creation in the 9 separated halls, creating a rich imaginative space and narrative structure, and displaying their individual unique social imagination. Notably, the “narrative” is as a curatorial method, and also a creative strategy, running through the whole process from the creation to the opening, until the whole process of the exhibition was complete.

The exhibitors have multiple identities including experts in astrology, soothsayers, and recorders, to echo and explore the already existing artistic narrative potential; while the work is in the clearance between the social reality and personal historical narration, which is a way of existence for “the opposition knowledge”, through the potential writing energy of the “Tales from the Taiping Era”, it both reflects the long-term thinking contexts and working paths of the 10 artists, and showcases their different social imaginations.

During the period of the exhibition, it also invited several “potential writing” practitioners of Chinese language including Jia Qin, Zhu Fa, E Niao, etc., to use the way of writing on the ground, on-site dissemination, to explore the present implication of “Tales from the Taiping Era”, and the potential narrative energy hidden in the space of the museum, meanwhile 10 Artist Books were published, which have become a specific extension of the academic research and in-depth interpretation of the exhibition.

“Tales from the Taiping Era” exhibition will continue until August 24.

About the Red Brick Art Museum

The Red Brick Art Museum is located in the Hegezhuang No. 1 International Art District in the Northeast of Beijing. It was founded by entrepreneurs and the collector couple, Yan Shijie and Cao Mei. The museum covers nearly 20,000 square meters, and the permanent collection holds representative works of important artists at home and abroad such as Christain Lemmerz, Olafur Eliasson, Michael Kvium, Tony Oursler, Huang Yongping, Wu Shanzhuan & Inga Svala Thorsdottir.

Translated by Chen Peihua and edited by Sue/CAFA ART INFO

Photo by the Red Brick Art Museum.