ABOUT THE EXHIBITION


Aurora Museum will present the latest solo exhibition of artist Xu Hongxiang, “Wander” from June 4th to June 30th, 2024. This marks the artist’s first solo exhibition at the Aurora Museum, following his solo exhibitions at the Hubei Museum of Art in 2021 - “An Exuberant View” and at the Xie Zilong Photography Museum in 2023 - “Ancient Posts”. This exhibition is an important example of the artist's latest creative practice.

The exhibition will feature more than thirty works created by the artist over several years, including over ten recent works and early video pieces, to showcase the development and latest explorations of his image content and media techniques. The exhibition is curated by Aurora Museum’s executive director Fritz Huang, with academic director from Lu Mingjun, a young researcher at Fudan University’s School of Philosophy.

The theme of the exhibition, “Wander,” means “strolling in the world,” - appreciating the surrounding landscape during the walk, savoring life in serenity. The second-floor gallery will feature Xu Hongxiang’s latest creations from his art residency in Australia in 2023 and his subsequent return to China, during his residency, the sense of alienation he experienced inspired his exploration of the relationships between human and nature, and between people. These small exploratory works in the second-floor cylindrical hall serve as prompts or “seeds” that inspired his post-return creations. His method has evolved from examining images through painting to largely detaching from images, transitioning from the pure theory of art to the realm of practical philosophy. This shift allows his paintings to transcend attributes, focusing on humanity, nature, and animals, including himself and those around him. His works, therefore, unfold on a more emotional level, becoming more relaxed and free, conveying a sense of ease and freedom as implied by the exhibition theme “Wander.”

The third-floor gallery will review Xu Hongxiang’s creative journey from 2017 to 2023. The video work Big Wild Dog, created in 2019, reflects the artist’s experience when his studio in Beijing’s Ring Iron Art District was about to be relocated. After packing up all his paintings, he spray-painted a black stray dog, often seen near his studio, on the studio wall. This piece echoes the frequent appearance of the dog image in his 2017 work Black Dog in the Dark.

The latter part of the gallery, using “Illuminant” as a starting point, showcases the different stages of Xu Hongxiang’s artistic development.





ABOUT THE ARTIST


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.