Xu Lei: Veneer of the World – video review

DATE: 2013.11.6

Themed by “Veneer of the World”, Xu Lei’s solo exhibition was opened with his recent creations since 2012. The monumental work “Gossamer” does not only represent his wisdom that he adjust the two polars of the world with rhetorical devices, but it is also the largest scenic illusion painting on silk. “Rainbow-Stone” and “Qi and Bone” series, if compared with his previous work, highlighting the vast space-time awareness, the appropriate verification of the language, dialectics neutralization of images, and the concisely meaningful theme, indicate the new breakthrough of traditional Chinese painting in the view of nature. Through this series of his new works heralding the future value of history, the exhibition presents his development in different ages by means of retrospecting time, the exhibits were arranged according the unions of “Mirror Image”, “Blue-Green”, “Chorographic Map”, “Empty Word”, “The Empty City”, “Romance”, “Worldview”, “Curtains” and etc., gradually reinterpreting the constantly extending creative process of the artist.