Guan Yinfu and Xu Hongxiang in the group exhibition "Follow the Rabbit" at the Museum Liaunig

Gallery Dynamic

2023.11.01

EXHIBITION TITLE Follow the Rabbit - Taking stock of a collection and its reception through contemporary Chinese art ARTIST Guan Yinfu Xu Hongxiang CURATOR Alexandra Grimmer DURATION 2023.04.30 - 10.29 VENUE Museum Liaunig, Austria TRIUMPH GALLERY is pleased to announced artist Guan Yinfu and Xu Hongxiang 's work have been invited to exhibit at group exhibition Follow the Rabbit - Taking stock of a collection and its reception through contemporary Chinese art at Museum Liaunig, Austria. In 2023, the Liaunig Art Collection opens its doors to the Far East and is presented in a new light, alongside Chinese contemporary art. In honor of the Year of the Rabbit in the Chinese Lunar Calendar, audiences will "Follow the Rabbit" on a journey, jumping down the rabbit hole and exploring a whole new world, just as Lewis Carroll depicted in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Museum Liaunig presents a selection of works from its extensive contemporary art collection alongside works by 28 Chinese artists. By contrasting the works of Austrian and other European artists with contemporary Chinese works, it breaks down the stereotypes of Western aesthetics and examines the collection in a different way. This form of dialog will bring a unique way of thinking. The exhibition aims to gain a new perspective on the Liaunig collection and to reflect on its own traditions through the connections and contrasts that arise from the collision of Chinese and Western cultures. The group exhibition Follow the Rabbit - Taking stock of a collection and its reception through contemporary Chinese art spans the period from 2008 to 2022, and is intended to illustrate the multilayered and dynamic development of visual art in China. Liaunig has provided a much larger collection (mainly from the 1960s to the present) to match the developmental strands covered by the 40 contemporary Chinese artworks on view. ARTIST Guan Yinfu was born in Heilongjiang, China in 1975, graduated from the Central Academy of Drama, Theatre Arts department, Stage Design major in 2002, currently lives and works in Beijing. The art of Guan Yinfu is the kind of art that submits to, grasps, and utilizes materiality, allowing paint, the most commonplace material for painters, to vocalize in its own way. He emphasized the material volume and industrial homogeneity of paint, and based on this, he has engendered a sensual form that’s correspondent to today’s material world. Acrylic, polyurethane, stainless steel, plywood, wooden crates, and various mediums—these processed materials that often appear in Guan Yinfu’s works are familiar but redundant, abundant but homogenous, in contemporary Chinese urban life. In comparison to the increasingly digital and virtual society, they seem a bit outmoded and obsolete, which bestow them a sense of authenticity. This kind of experience emerges in his works as a sense of inertia—all of this creates a sense of installation in Guan Yinfu’s works, although the artist has never intentionally elucidated any social issue in his works. Xu Hongxiang was born in Changsha, Hunan Province, China in 1984, graduated from the Printmaking Department of China Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2007 with a bachelor´s degree, graduated from the Printmaking Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2011 with a master's degree, and now lives and works in Beijing. Xu Hongxiang’s artistic practice often revolves around painting. Project-based painting series with narrative contents and oil paintings centered on landscapes are the two parallel creative approaches that punctuate his career. "Image", "body", and "the relationship between painting and reality" are the overarching themes he has been trying to explore in his multi-media painting projects throughout the years. The traits of his highly stylized painting, which included a signature saturated palette, are the fragments that reflect such themes.

Artists

Guan Yinfu

Guan Yinfu, born in 1975 in Heilongjiang Province, China, graduated from the Department of Theatre Arts at the Central Academy of Drama in 2002. He currently lives and works in Beijing.Throughout his career, Guan Yinfu has continuously explored the multi-dimensional material properties of pigments. The sensory qualities carried by the pigments are fully manifested as he constructs spatial order through establishing color relationships. Simultaneously, the interaction of gravity and tension on the substrate results in either thin or thick patches of color. A soothing, sluggish rhythm forms a unique "aesthetics of inertia" on his canvases. This aesthetic transforms the paintings into corporeal entities. Different thicknesses of color patches resemble skin and muscle, corresponding to the two threads of lightness and heaviness in Guan Yinfu's creations. His recent explorations in "The Ontological Turn" subtly echo the forefront of "New Materialism" trends. He also endeavors to penetrate beyond the surface of painting, delving into the depths of the spiritual realm. These varied forms of color blocks step onto the stage of spiritual drama.

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Artists

Xu Hongxiang

Xu Hongxiang was born in 1984 in Changsha, Hunan, China. He graduated from the Printmaking Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2007 with a bachelor´s degree, graduated from the Printmaking Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2011 with a master's degree, and now lives and works in Beijing.

Xu Hongxiang’s artistic practice often revolves around painting. Project-based painting series with narrative contents and oil paintings centered on landscapes are the two parallel creative approaches that punctuate his career. "Image", "body", and "the relationship between painting and reality" are the overarching themes he has been trying to explore in his multi-media painting projects throughout the years. The traits of his highly stylized painting, which included a signature saturated palette, are the fragments that reflect such themes.

Xu Hongxiang’s selected solo exhibitions and projects includes: "Xu Hongxiang: Ancient Posts" (Xie Zilong Photography Museum, Changsha, 2023), "Xu Hongxiang: Displaced Images" (Triumph Gallery, Beijing, 2022), "Xu Hongxiang: An Exuberant View" (Hubei Museum of Art, Wuhan, 2021), "Xu Hongxiang: One Night While Hunting for Faeries" (Loft8 Galerie, Vienna, 2019), "Not Dark Yet - Xu Hongxiang Solo Exhibition" (Triumph Gallery, Beijing, 2018), "Shuffling the Cards" (Parallel Vienna, Vienna, 2018), "Li Qiang" (Changsha, 2016), "In the Field" (Changsha, 2016), "Xu Hongxiang Solo Exhibition" (SZ Art Center, Beijing, 2014). Selected group exhibitions includes: "Follow the Rabbit - Talking stock of a collection and its reception through contemporary Chinese art" (Museum Liaunig, Austria, 2023), "History and Reality: Contemporary Art of China" (Bulgarian National Museum of Art, Sofia, 2018), "Visual Questions" (Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangdong, 2017), "Oriental Story" (National Art Museum of China, Beijing, 2017),"Centripetal Force" (SCA Galleries, Sydney, 2017), "In Silence - China Contemporary Art" (Sydney Town Hall, Sydney, 2014).

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