On November 6, 2015, adjacent to Asian largest urban park - Chaoyang Park, Beijing Solana is a mature, fashion business community, Yang Art Museum finally settled in this area after more than 2 years of preparation, bringing the commercial, leisure area an artistic breath, and also exploring a new development idea with the combination of art, commercial space and community. “Concealed Power” curated by Liu Libin is the opening exhibition of the Yang Art Museum, and it aims to present the exploration of the relationship between “body” and “material” in the form of a multi-body experience featuring a total of 38 pieces by 25 artists.

The interior space of Yang Art Museum was designed by the young architect Wu Jia. The art museum is divided into many picturesque well-arranged areas, and rich gradations both weakening and eliminating the visual impact of the space in the process of the exhibition, to create a concise, modern, and changeable space for art exhibitions. For the establishment of the Yang Art Museum, General Manager of Solana Co., Ltd. Zhang Liangcan addressed the opening ceremony of the exhibition, he said that as people’s material life was rich, it was a trend of the times to increase the consumption of culture and art, he hoped the establishment of the Yang Art Museum shorten the distance between art and life, changing the commercial community to an art space. The Director of Yang Art Museum Stella Wang said that, it was a mission and the original intention was to turn the art museum into a cultural landmark, and it would be developed to an organization which integrates a collection, exhibition and research, and tries to answer the questions of contemporary art in the process of globalization and urbanization, at the same time it also gives full play to the publicity, nonprofit cultural functions of the art museum.

As the opening exhibition for the museum, the exhibition “Concealed Power” is divided into 5 parts including “fluid form”, “moving form”, “flat form”, “mixed form”, “overlapping form”, the curator Liu Libin said that, “As the carrier of consciousness, the body forms a spiritual home combining the self and the world in the mixed experiences. The body is one of the motive forces to run through the creation, while the intentional aspect of this motive force doesn’t point in a single direction, therefore the presentation of the body is complex and diverse in the works.” Focusing on theresearch orientation, Liu Libin has successfully planned “The Taste of Ink” (2013) and “The Third Criticism – Art Language” (2014), the presentation of the “Concealed Power” is the result of further study and discussion on the subject.

In the part of “fluid form”, various materials of the works are melted, flowing and congealed with a fixed shape during the process over time. Spectators stand in front of static works, narrate from the end and imagine, have a perception of the stretch and extension like the one of the flesh in the process of the material generation. Various states enter the tactile sense of the viewer from the vision in the time rheology. In the part of “overlapping form”, the materials are broken and overlapped to reconstruct a new body. It is obvious that the overall growing method has “maximising” characteristics. The relative independence between parts drives the spectator to re-examine the material composition by the minimum unit, it is necessary to penetrate mysteries layer upon layer. In the parts of “flat form” and “mixed form”, brushworks are like life marks of temperature, the texture interwoven by pigments is like patulous pores, which are breathing, and proving that it is the presentation of the ego rather than serving a reproduction. The strokes are as a result of the body touching the materials, which becomes an heterogeneous existence generated by the interaction between the body and materials.

The exhibition continues to January 8, 2016.

Text by Zhang Wenzhi, Photo by Yang Yanyuan/CAFA ART INFO

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

About the exhibition

Title: Concealed Power

Curator: Liu Libin

Artists: (in no particular order)

Cao Hui, Chen Wenling, Liu Jianhua, Shao Yinong & Mu Chen, Zhan Wang, Zhang Wei, Li Nuo, Liu Liangzi, Wu Mengshi, Zhang Zhengquan, Guan Yinfu, Feng Yichen, Sui Jianguo, Wang Huangsheng, Tan Ping, Cao Jigang, Shao Wenhuan, Wang Gang, Ai Guo, Fang Lijun, Hu Qingyan, Wen Hao, Sun Zui

Venue: Yang Art Museum, No.6 Chaoyang Park, Building 14, Chaoyang District, Beijing, China

Courtesy of the artists and Yang Art Museum.