Hosted by Suzhou Jinji Lake Art Museum, co-organized by the New Media Department of Sichuan Fine Arts Institute and the White Box Museum of Art, “Empty Shadow – Zhang Xiaotao’s Works 2009-2014” is on display at Suzhou Jinji Lake Art Museum. Zhu Qiang serves as the director of the exhibition, and Feng Boyi, Lu Xin and Chen An serve as the curators.

Yin Weidong, Director of Suzhou Jinji Lake Art Museum wrote in the exhibition preface that, Zhang Xiaotao’s exhibition themed “Empty Shadow” is the first large scale solo exhibition of a Chinese artist to be held at the Jinji Lake Art Museum. It covers the representative works of painting, video, animation, installation and theater performance art by the artist. In between a real and virtual emptiness, the creative context of Zhang Xiaotao’s art is arranged and on display. It doesn’t only intuitively display the works by Zhang, but also reflects his thinking on the current social reality, cultural ecology, and is also a kind of transformation and interpretation of the art.

For the exhibition, Zhang Xiaotao uses and processes multi-media visual elements to set a series of visual tension, and the tension is not only reflected in a natural object and scene, but also to place the whole atmosphere in a saturated horizon on the mirror of life, and the process of his works shift from painting to multi media to the use of video, installation, animation, performance. The entire structure of the show is a kind of multi-voice ensemble keynote of an Oriental picturesque image or the heteroglossia resonant melody around a mood.

Feng Boyi thought Zhang Xiaotao was a representative artist that was born in the 1970s, from easel painting to various expressive ways including new media, animation, installation and performance, Zhang Xiaotao didn’t develop in a single direction, but tried many styles, he was a case study for contemporary Chinese art. At the same time, Zhang Xiaotao’s work was full of profound humanistic care, while “empty shadow” portrayed the creative style and realm in recent years. Artist Zhang Xiaotao said, he was over 40 years old, which made him feel tiny, and revealed a sense of boundless, “empty shadow” seemed to reflect his present feeling of life.

About the exhibition

Duration: March 16 – May 16, 2014

Venue: Suzhou Jinji Lake Art Museum (F2 of Suzhou Culture and Art Center)

Courtesy of the artist and Suzhou Jinji Lake Art Museum, translated by Chen Peihua and edited by Sue/CAFA ART INFO.