On December 6, 2015, hosted by Shanghai Mingyuan Art Museum, “Scratchable Latex – the Precise Visualization” opened at Mingyuan Art Museum located in No.1199 Fuxing Middle Road, Shanghai. The exhibition is jointly curated by Gao Yuan and Shi Guanzhe, invited a total of 17 artists bring together about 50 works.

The “scratchable latex” evolved from the Hetu (Yellow River Chart) and Luoshu (Inscription of the River Luo), is a grid composed of four vertical and horizontal equidistant parallel lines. It serves as the bounded lattice where people copy Chinese calligraphy, and it is also similar to the grids of the velo, invented by Alberti in the Renaissance, used for the screen framing. “Grid” rejects all kinds of narrative, literature and other elements, in such an indifferent geometric element, modernism is through regularization, anti-imitation, anti-naturalism to maintain the essence of its pure visualization. The exhibition is not only for the external schema of “scratchable latex” and the deep inner logic – the generation, development and application of the schema and the unconscious role in people’s thinking.

The exhibited works almost cover all the visual art forms including the easel painting, sculpture, photography, installation, video, and new media art, as well as trans-media art. According to the form and concept of the work, the exhibition is divided into three interwoven and different units, the first unit is Abstract and the Schema, including artists Reiner Kallhardt, Cui Xiuwen, He Sen, Wang Yuhong, Liu Wentao, Pang Hailong; the second unit is Creation of Image and the Evolution, including Miao Xiaochun, Shi Lei, He Wenjue, Zhang Xiaotao, Deng Yan, Fu Bin, Sun Xiaochen, Zhang Wenchao; the third unit is Thought and the Shape, including Tang Hui, Shi Jinsong, Zhang Xiaotao, Wang Yuhong, Pang Hailong, Pei Li. Among some artists participate in several units at the same time, and refuse to be confined by one theme, which reveals the transcendence of work medium and concept. The three units mutually contain and complement each other, and the origin of the interaction between them is the openness and its cross-cultural connotation of the schema of “scratchable latex”.

The scratchable latex that symbolizes the origin of framing and imaging generation, is a kind of cross-cultural structure existing in the Chinese and western history. It is a symbol of the frame and statute in the history, both the foundation of imaging, and the rules of game, at the same time it is also the cultural framework that is closely related to the present digital rationality and order. This exhibition brings the traditional cultural elements and the relevant problems of art history into the discussion, trying to find the structure and the back cultural logic that is related to the production and generating of image, and naturally breeding in the contemporary art. So that the schema of “scratchable latex” seems to symbolize some kind of potential order in the contemporary art – a precise and rational thinking pattern, the cross-cultural structure. It does not only generate in the intertexture of the traditional culture and current visual experiences, and is also blended in the context of a variety of social topics.

The exhibition continues to January 3, 2016.

Title: “Scratchable Latex – the Precise Visualization”

Producer: Ling Feifei

Curator: Gao Yuan, Shi Guanzhe

Organizer: Shanghai Mingyuan Art Museum

Duration: December 6, 2015 to January 3, 2016

Opening Time: December 6, 2015 (Sunday) 16:30

Venue: Shanghai Mingyuan Art Museum

Artists: Reiner Kallhardt, Miao Xiaochun, Shi Lei, Tang Hui, Shi Jinsong, He Sen, He Wenjue, Zhang Xiaotao, Cui Xiuwen, Wang Yuhong, Liu Wentao, Pang Hailong, Deng Yan, Fu Bin, Sun Xiaochen, Pei Li, Zhang Wenchao

Courtesy of the artists and Shanghai Mingyuan Art Museum, translated by Chen Peihua and edited by Sue/CAFA ART INFO.