By Curator Dai Zhuoqun

The German philosopher Hegel once stated in his famous work of Aesthetics that beauty is philosophy. Beauty is what truth is all about to some extent, that is to say, it must be real. However, more strictly speaking, there is a difference between truth and beauty. That philosophy is regarded as real accords with its self-being nature and universality and also lies in the fact that it thinks in ways of being objects with self-being nature and universality. Hence, the perceptual existence of philosophy is not the object of thinking but the universal philosophy within it. When it comes to the moment that this outer existence is reflected by consciousness and its concept and its appearance are unified, the philosophy is not only real but beautiful as well. Thus, here comes a definition for beauty --"Beauty is the perceptual appearance of any philosophy."

An increasing deep discovery of some notion with intangible nature, which is also intensified by the merge of post-modern philosophy and art in ideological field, can be revealed by art in the course of the recognition of aesthetics. In terms of the philosophy of viewing visual art as spiritual similarity people are exploring, there is a constant tendency of the preference to perceive appearance as an inner and invisible world that hides deeply behind what presents to us.

Three invited artists respectively respond to the theme of this exhibition in their own way of expressing clues in works. From Ms. Kong Lingnan’s work, we can see blazing lights coming out of mountains, rivers, beaches and islands. She created an imaginary but poetic space for views to unleash their imagination. The mighty nature in artist’s work was miraculously transformed into a virtual and almost abstract world, the viewing focus was shifted from concrete scenario and tenderness of subtle emotion was covered under such tranquil and splendid poetic space. The entire piece of work was created with an alienated attitude and in an outsider’s perspective. Comparatively, Mr. Lu Zhengyuan makes full use of those tiny , fragile and negligible perception to materialize deeper understanding and probe into the nature of objects, which is filled with ideology of sentimental humanistic care. This is artist’s critical thinking and meditation upon objects as well as the achievement of tempering himself in facing up with his own inner world. Speaking of Mr. Shen Liang’s work, recently he has made breakthrough in two-dimensional construction and graphics, building up a stylistic language of painting, a materialized graphic, which turns painting into more like objects than ordinary images. By means of the vehicle of painting, artists revive traces of time, unveil records of daily life and history of objects, and materialize time in ways of touching brushes, drawing with pigments, piling and styling.

In the masterpiece of Laocoon, the famous German writer Gotthold Ephraim Lessing pointed out--"Regardless of presentation for humans, notions or narrations, they are all unsuitable in arts and have inferior importance at best. Presentation is not limited into expressions only related to objects we are drawing, and such things as backdrop, layout, colors and patterns can also be good supporters of presentation. So we might say that the corresponding language counterpart of emotions and its environment can be probably found in the sequence of a piece of lyric. " The value of skepticism expressed by appearance lies in the Lessing’s revelation of the nature of languages inevitably representing invisible and secretive world in the form of concrete appearance.

About the exhibition

Dates: Nov 15, 2014 - Dec 15, 2014

Opening: Nov 15, 2014, 15:00, Saturday

Curator: Dai Zhuoqun

Artists: Kong Lingnan, Lu Zhengyuan, Shen Liang

Venue: Phoenix Art Palace, Shanghai

Address: G102, Red Town, No. 570 West Huaihai Road, Changning District, Shanghai

Tel: +86 (0)21-60908375

Email: phoenixartgallery@163.com

Courtesy of the artists and Phoenix Art Palace.