No. 18 on the Bund has become popular because it recently became the "hall" where the male protagonist Lao Bai finally held a painting exhibition in the popular movie "Love Myth".
In the real world, 18 the Bund really houses a fascinating art museum, Kunsai Art Museum No. 18 Art Space. There is no old white here, but new sprouts of spring are sprouting, and today ushered in the "Kingdom of Youth - Group Exhibition of Young Artists".
Only to see that the exhibition hall is divided into 8 relatively independent spaces, each space hides children's fun and surprises, innocence and fantasy, so that the audience can perceive the energy of youth and build the "natural kingdom" in their hearts.
At a time when the epidemic prevention and control situation is still grim, through this vibrant exhibition, people will also see the beautiful vision of the cold winter past spring.
Eight young artists, such as Gui Tuzi, Dog-like Fish, Luo Wei, Aoi of South Island, RS., Tao Sanshun, Xie Daling, and Zhang Hailang, incarnated as the eight "lords" of the "Youth Kingdom", using their brushes to give the outline of youth, express the appearance of youth, and borrow the stories in their works as a carrier to show the concept of their respective arts.
The exhibition presents more than 70 groups of works by these eight young artists, including paper, sculpture, video, and comprehensive materials.
Named after the "Kingdom of Youth", the exhibition contains three themes: "romance and dream, sadness and privacy, curiosity and exploration"; and creates different youth eras with the youthful styles of different artists in 8 exhibition areas.
"Characters, still lifes, reality, virtuality, rationality, sensibility" are the unique symbols of this exhibition, focusing on keywords such as "room", "individual" and "closeness", highlighting the time and space contained in this exhibition, and at the same time having an artistic story.
The "Kingdom of Youth" is a familiar silhouette, and each part is related to the whole.
This exhibition reflects many works in different time and space, there are realistic, imaginary, supernatural, and stimulate new emotional echoes and meanings with each other, and also hint at the profound contradiction of duality.
Curator Zhong Ying pointed out that although the 8 young artists in this exhibition are similar in age, their convergence did not produce a vigorous direct confrontation, but they were familiar with each other and supported each other. This time, they will tell the journey of contemporary young art groups and their efforts and aspirations through the display of their works.
If fragments of daily life are one of the inspirations of the work, the inspiration of Guituzi is more from fairy tales.
She said that her favorite story was Hans Christian Andersen's "Daughter of the Sea", and she never understood why the little mermaid fell in love with the prince after only looking at him, and did not even want her family and life for this unfounded love.
Now the aftertaste, perhaps because of purity, just like who can understand the heart of youth except youth itself?
Gui Tuzi "Plum Rainy Season"
The work of the dog-like fish is brightly colored, recording images or scenes that suddenly appear in the mind.
As he depicts, "Closing his eyes is pitch black, opening his eyes, and turning into an unexpected and strange world," sometimes feels that he has "straightened out" some youthful photos, playing "very cold" jokes, occasionally opening to himself, often to others.
Dog-like Fish "Otter Slow"
As a millennial artist, Luo Wei is a special individual.
She has a wealth of creative media including video, painting, installation, performance, game programming, EEG control, etc., covering science, extraterrestrial civilizations, astrology, astronomy, biotechnology and so on.
Luo Wei's Genesis Series 183
Aoi of the South Island often depicts the mundane things or moments of life, a daze in a state of chance, a thought, pure and quiet.
Aoi of the South Island expresses the atmosphere of silence in fresh and unconventional tones, the air is filled with a faint sadness, the flowers are beautiful, the butterflies are beautiful, just like the silence of lovers is also beautiful.
Aoi of the South Island "Clear"
RS. Rs, a young artist who records, blends and creates his growth memories with his sense of reality, chose to return to his comfortable hometown in Northeast China to teach, precipitate and continue to expand the territory of artistic creation after studying in Florence, Italy.
Narrative and symbolic expression of ideas is transmitted from abstract and simple visual forms, creating a unique imaginative world while opening up the singularity of contemplation for heavy nostalgia.
For youth, RS. describes this feeling as a flowing cloud, so figurative, human, and at the same time changeable, ethereal, that even when you are in it it becomes invisible.
RS.《Tian Ya Fang Cao Hotel 》
From human emotions to the interstellar universe, it is the scope of Tao Sanshun's discussion.
She often expresses her inner thoughts in a metaphorical way, "Living in this world, it is inevitable to hide your head and tail." ”
In these works on the exhibition site, she uses animals as metaphors, placing them in human space and hiding their wildness, just like we humans need to live in our own society and need to live in hiding. Even so, it's fine.
Tao Sanshun "To this world with hidden heads and tails"
Xie Daling, who has been working on paper materials since 2016, jokes that she is an assembly line worker and that working in obscurity is not a problem at all.
She is the youngest of the 8 participating artists and the one who first began to imagine "50 Years Later", the fragile and rough corrugated paper to build a hovering cabin, which is the "house of love" after the catastrophe of life, longing for new possibilities in life.
Xie Daling "Actually a Lion 2"
Zhang Hailang solidifies the past story into portrait creation with his impression.
Her starting point is more in individual narratives, derived from the loneliness she feels when living in London and Shanghai. Just like the work "Cactus" in the exhibition, it looks comfortable on the outside, and only you know it when you sit on it.
Zhang Hailang "Cactus"
These young artists are similar in age, but their distinct and unique personalities make them present different forms when expressing their youth, interpreting the multi-perspective interpretation of youth.
As such, the exhibition also constitutes a miniature intellectual history of today's younger generation of artists – they are not bound by traditional media, more free and diverse narratives, willing to interact on social media; they are very focused on self-pursuit, and their lives are in a constant state of life.
The artists participating in this exhibition may still be very young in their thinking, or their works may not be mature, but this creative outlook is the inevitable result of the continuous development and freedom and openness of Chinese art in the historical context of the violent collision of Chinese and Western cultures; it is also the full expression of the gradual awakening and increasing self-confidence of traditional Chinese culture under the continuous inheritance of the older generation of artists.
This kind of performance, which is rooted in traditional Chinese culture and absorbs and digests the essence of Western culture, continues to be traditional and pioneering and innovative, is also in line with the spiritual connotation of the Shanghai school culture promoted and promoted by Jiushi Art Museum. The openness, creativity and diversity behind it have also attracted the museum to continue to actively launch programs to support young Chinese artists.
Author: Fan Xin
Editor: Wang Licheng