Shanghai Dandy: Group Exhibition
Past exhibition
Installation Views
Overview
a.f.art theatreFangling, No Content 无内容, 2017
Don Gallery is pleased to announce “Shanghai Dandy,” a celebration of its 10th anniversary. By means of mega-metaphor, the phrasing of the title assumes the superimposition of a semantic pun and a phonetic pun to imply the cultural philosophy that Don persists—looking for a new vernacular for innovation, leading the delivery of cutting-edge ideas in contemporary art, and embracing the boundless vigor within.
The word dandy that emerged in the late 18th century describes a performative type of character, presenting enough romantic circumstances. The dandies prefer a deliberate shaping of lifestyle and a careful orchestration of material environment, while constantly negating themselves. Such an exotic import is gradually developed into a literary figure—a cult of self. Defined by Charles Baudelaire in the mid-19th century and accompanied with the promotion of Neo-Sensation School in the early 20th century, it brings forth the term of dandyism, pioneering the modern movement and powering its Zeitgeist.
Don Gallery attempts to trace, remodel and hack up the creative practice by a cynical dandy, having him/her shanghaied into a professional player, whose assigned role is named Dandy. Exactly as Don Gallery moved away from the historical scale of the Blackstone Apartments and join the rather active cultural hub at the once-industrial West Bund initiative, to further introduce contemporary art for the city, Dandy is seeking to cause a hybrid effect of de-cadence mixing the old and the new by diversion and transgression, which delineates a magic metropolis of the immediate future.
Dandy projects his/her perfect other self on the gendered body of modern/módēng girls and boys. (S)he appears to be hanging around and roaming about the real world, yet engaging the boundaries of different sites and installing the counter-sites in-between that contribute to the transformation of various relations and the ever-changing geographical imagination of above sea. (S)he is also much skilled at decomposing the organization of one single position. By constructing a trans-cultural landscape out of autobiographical understandings in a modest way, (s)he is able to have the confrontation among cosmopolitanism, internationalism, and globalism concentrated.
The exhibition borrows the New Fiction thinking—“obsession with China,” and appropriates the mimesis of “visual expression” that derives from colonialist literature. Starting with a defamiliarizing process of identification, the chapter-framed narrative of “Shanghai Dandy” articulating twelve artists in wake of their own artistic license would probably shed light on the precarious situation concealed in the discourse of the erotically-charged city.
A dynamic configuration of exhibited works elaborates the behavioral uncanny of Dandy, where the full-blown psychedelic experience of affect pops up. Lighting installation by LIU Chuang that bears certain feminine quality first demonstrating the internal gaze; alternative self-portraits by HU Zi, ZHANG Yunyao and XU Yi that stems from the separation of soul and flesh contrarily integrating body and mind; dark space manufactured by ZHANG Ruyi, HU Weiyi and Nabuqi rendering a “desiring apparatus” for their own good; paintings by LI Shan, QU Fengguo and LIU Ren coined with the perception of life being as a continuous flow of deformation accessing to the closed and silent rational subject by instant feelings; nature depicted by LU Song suffering from melancholia that permeates through a negative atmosphere, and even allows for uncertainty; potent monologue by a.f.art theatreFangling finally directing to all the transient states that a dandy is struggling with. The view of the exhibition resembles a Sandplay in progress. Any sensory reaction could coordinate the spatiotemporal association of the past, the present and the future.
* To shanghai someone means to kidnap someone aboard a ship for enforced service at sea, often with the help of liquor or a drug.
The word dandy that emerged in the late 18th century describes a performative type of character, presenting enough romantic circumstances. The dandies prefer a deliberate shaping of lifestyle and a careful orchestration of material environment, while constantly negating themselves. Such an exotic import is gradually developed into a literary figure—a cult of self. Defined by Charles Baudelaire in the mid-19th century and accompanied with the promotion of Neo-Sensation School in the early 20th century, it brings forth the term of dandyism, pioneering the modern movement and powering its Zeitgeist.
Don Gallery attempts to trace, remodel and hack up the creative practice by a cynical dandy, having him/her shanghaied into a professional player, whose assigned role is named Dandy. Exactly as Don Gallery moved away from the historical scale of the Blackstone Apartments and join the rather active cultural hub at the once-industrial West Bund initiative, to further introduce contemporary art for the city, Dandy is seeking to cause a hybrid effect of de-cadence mixing the old and the new by diversion and transgression, which delineates a magic metropolis of the immediate future.
Dandy projects his/her perfect other self on the gendered body of modern/módēng girls and boys. (S)he appears to be hanging around and roaming about the real world, yet engaging the boundaries of different sites and installing the counter-sites in-between that contribute to the transformation of various relations and the ever-changing geographical imagination of above sea. (S)he is also much skilled at decomposing the organization of one single position. By constructing a trans-cultural landscape out of autobiographical understandings in a modest way, (s)he is able to have the confrontation among cosmopolitanism, internationalism, and globalism concentrated.
The exhibition borrows the New Fiction thinking—“obsession with China,” and appropriates the mimesis of “visual expression” that derives from colonialist literature. Starting with a defamiliarizing process of identification, the chapter-framed narrative of “Shanghai Dandy” articulating twelve artists in wake of their own artistic license would probably shed light on the precarious situation concealed in the discourse of the erotically-charged city.
A dynamic configuration of exhibited works elaborates the behavioral uncanny of Dandy, where the full-blown psychedelic experience of affect pops up. Lighting installation by LIU Chuang that bears certain feminine quality first demonstrating the internal gaze; alternative self-portraits by HU Zi, ZHANG Yunyao and XU Yi that stems from the separation of soul and flesh contrarily integrating body and mind; dark space manufactured by ZHANG Ruyi, HU Weiyi and Nabuqi rendering a “desiring apparatus” for their own good; paintings by LI Shan, QU Fengguo and LIU Ren coined with the perception of life being as a continuous flow of deformation accessing to the closed and silent rational subject by instant feelings; nature depicted by LU Song suffering from melancholia that permeates through a negative atmosphere, and even allows for uncertainty; potent monologue by a.f.art theatreFangling finally directing to all the transient states that a dandy is struggling with. The view of the exhibition resembles a Sandplay in progress. Any sensory reaction could coordinate the spatiotemporal association of the past, the present and the future.
* To shanghai someone means to kidnap someone aboard a ship for enforced service at sea, often with the help of liquor or a drug.
Works
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a.f.art theatreFangling, No Content 无内容, 2017 -
LIU ChuangUntitled (Fang Sheng Vase) No.1 无题（方胜瓶） No.1, 2016Porcelain, LED light, electrical wire 陶瓷、LED灯、电线26 x 20 x 10 cm x 3
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ZHANG YunyaoStudy in Figures (ALACRITAS) 形体习作(ALACRITAS), 2019Graphite and pigment on felt 石墨、色粉 毛毡250 x 190 cm
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ZHANG YunyaoStudy in the Head 头部习作, 2017Graphite on felt 石墨毛毡42 x 35.5 cm
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QU FengguoEnd of Heat 2, Four Seasons 四季 处暑 2, 2017Oil on Canvas 布面油画80 x 100 cm
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ZHANG RuyiArchitectural Fittings─2 建筑配件─2, 2017Concrete, pigment, wood, steel, ceramic tiles 混凝土，色粉，木，钢筋，瓷砖76 x 42 x 430 cm
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XU YiThe Lovers (Portrait） 情人 (肖像）, 2017Giclee print 艺术微喷70 x 120 cmEdition of 5 plus 1 artist's proof
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XU YiThe Lovers (Hands） 情人 (手）, 2017Giclee print 艺术微喷60 x 80 cm
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HU WeiyiSprawl, 2017Glass, emulsion, led lightboxes, wooden frames 玻璃，感光乳剂，led灯箱，实木镜框44 x 54 x 7 cm x 6
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NabuqiA View Beyond Space No.1 空间外的风景 No.1, 2016Stainless steel varnish 不锈钢，喷漆60 x 50 x 50 cmEdition of 4 plus 1 artist's proof
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LIU RenInches of Time-Wave 寸光阴-浪, 201724K gold foil, acrylic, oil 24k金箔，丙烯，油墨173.3 x 145.5 cm
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ZHANG Yunyao, Study in the Head 头部习作, 2017
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QU FengguoEnd of Heat 1, Four Seasons 四季 处暑 1, 2017Oil on Canvas 布面油画80 x 100 cm
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ZHANG RuyiCopy─1 副本─1, 2017Concrete, rebar 混凝土，螺纹钢筋6 x 7 x 60 cm
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ZHANG RuyiArc─2 弧线─2, 2017Mixed media on wood panel 木板上综合材料80 x 130 cm
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LI ShanBlackstone Apartments一Balcony 黑石公寓一露台, 2017Oil on paper 纸上油画29.6 x 21.4 cm
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HU ZiFrancesco Clemente, 2016Gouache on paper 纸上水粉56 x 76 cm
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LU SongEncircled 环绕, 2016Oil on Canvas 布面油画200 x 150 cm
