Zhi Min
Waiting for the Inevitable
2024.07.14 - 08.31
TRIUMPH GALLERY is pleased to announce Waiting for the Inevitable, the artist Zhi Min’s first solo exhibition with the gallery, from July 14 to August 31, 2024. The exhibition, curated by Zhang Chen, features more than 20 works by the aritst, including newly completed sculptures of ceramics, metal, and bronze sculptures.
This exhibition will focus on presenting a series of new works by the artist with the theme of time. Zhi Min’s waiting concludes a "Non-linear Narrative" in space and appears as a "Color of History" in time. His recent works remind people of the "cosmic” that transcends the individual and makes the medium of sculpture the medium of "cosmism.” His recent works are reminiscent of a transcendental "cosmic,” in which materials such as stone, clay, and porcelain, as sculptural mediums, are elevated to the moment of the cosmic explosion and the combustion theorem of thermodynamics while at the same time penetrating deeper into the inner stratum of the earth in the "Boundless Worlds.” It then extends downward from the space narrative to the "Depth of Time.” Or, in other words, to the real nature in the eyes of the Chinese. His works simultaneously express the modern vision of Op Art and the long tradition of Chinese history, just as "Trigrams of Luo and Yellow Rivers" connects the rivers of the earth and the Milky Way of the zenith at the same time. The sculptural space and the temporal dimension of his personal art history unfold between each work.
This exhibition is a testament to Zhi Min’s journey of active waiting, a result of the dynamic interplay between active creation and passive behavior, and the mutual waiting and simultaneous progress of his multiple creative threads. His works, like the sculptor himself, have traversed cosmic space, wandering amid the heavens, and are now ready to land back in the world, marking the beginning of a new phase of waiting in coherent creation.
This exhibition will focus on presenting a series of new works by the artist with the theme of time. Zhi Min’s waiting concludes a "Non-linear Narrative" in space and appears as a "Color of History" in time. His recent works remind people of the "cosmic” that transcends the individual and makes the medium of sculpture the medium of "cosmism.” His recent works are reminiscent of a transcendental "cosmic,” in which materials such as stone, clay, and porcelain, as sculptural mediums, are elevated to the moment of the cosmic explosion and the combustion theorem of thermodynamics while at the same time penetrating deeper into the inner stratum of the earth in the "Boundless Worlds.” It then extends downward from the space narrative to the "Depth of Time.” Or, in other words, to the real nature in the eyes of the Chinese. His works simultaneously express the modern vision of Op Art and the long tradition of Chinese history, just as "Trigrams of Luo and Yellow Rivers" connects the rivers of the earth and the Milky Way of the zenith at the same time. The sculptural space and the temporal dimension of his personal art history unfold between each work.
This exhibition is a testament to Zhi Min’s journey of active waiting, a result of the dynamic interplay between active creation and passive behavior, and the mutual waiting and simultaneous progress of his multiple creative threads. His works, like the sculptor himself, have traversed cosmic space, wandering amid the heavens, and are now ready to land back in the world, marking the beginning of a new phase of waiting in coherent creation.
Zhi Min
Zhi Min, born in 1975, is the Executive Deputy Director of the Sculpture Institute at the China National Academy of Arts, as well as a professor and doctoral supervisor. His work Twenty-Four Solar Terms - Beginning of Autumn won the Gold Award in the sculpture category at the 39th Florence Literature and Art Awards in Italy in 2022. His piece Hong Meng won the Gold Award and the Grand Prize at the 8th “Tomorrow Sculpture Awards” in 2020. The sculpture Boat received an Excellence Award at the "2022 Beijing Winter Olympics International Public Art Competition," hosted by the Beijing Winter Olympics Organizing Committee, and was one of the seven final selected works. The work Celestial Phenomena Four Gods - Azure Dragon won the Kaolin Award Bronze Prize at the first Jingdezhen International Ceramic Art Biennale in 2021 under the theme "Spirit of Porcelain." He has held 12 solo exhibitions at major academic institutions, including the National Art Museum of China, Hubei Museum of Art, Shanghai Art Museum, China Cultural Center in Paris, and Beijing One Art Museum. He has led multiple national-level projects, including those funded by the National Social Science Fund and the National Art Fund. Zhi Min has published seven monographs, including Luminous Bodies - Chinese Culture and Art and Endless Creative Methodology. He has also edited several academic columns in core journals and published over 100 articles and columns in national Chinese core journals and national-level art core journals.
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Curator
Curator
Zhang Chen
Zhang Chen, Doctor of Fine Arts, currently an associate professor and master's supervisor at the School of Humanities, Central Academy of Fine Arts. His research interests include visual culture theory, Western art history, and comparison of Chinese and foreign art. He has visited the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice, Italy, the Center for Art History Research in Paris, France, the Center for Italian Renaissance Studies at Harvard University, and the Palace of World Culture in Berlin, Germany. He won the 9th IAAC International Art Critic Award (2023), the first New Century Contemporary Art Foundation "墨缘" Art History Research and Writing Funding Program (2023), and other awards. He is currently the host of the National Social Science Fund Art Youth Project "Research on the Theory of Modern and Contemporary Body Art", and has completed the National Social Science Fund Post-Funding Excellent Doctoral Dissertation Publishing Project.