Exhibition of “Gu Xiong Yang Shu”

Curator: Tang Jing Reception：2008.11.13, 17:00 – 21:00 Duration: 2008.11.14 – 2008.12.10, from Tue to Sun, 10:00 – 22:00 (Mondays on appointment only) Address: No.23, Qian Men Dong Da Jie, Dongcheng District, Beijing (the southeast corner of Legation Quarter)

In late 1980's, Gu Xiong and Yang Shu have graduated from Sichuan Fine Arts Institute in succession. When the '85 New Wave Art Movement swept the southwest China, they devoted themselves into the wave and were deemed as pioneers of the very event together with Zhang Xiaogang and Ye Yongqing who have enjoyed the spotlight today. In the 1988 Southwest Art Show and 1989 China /Avant-Garde Art, they exhibited works full of skills and artistic sensitivity. Later that time, both two went abroad for further education. For about two decades, their exposure towards the advancing of western contemporary art seems to set them far away from the aura of Chinese contemporary art; but it never stumble them from their pursuit of art ideals. For years, the two artists have devoted to carry out artistic practices under the context of cultural conflicts and interactions. It is their cross-cultural attempt and creation that endow them with profound understanding and insight towards the essence of different cultures.

Gu Xiong, now identified as a Canada-based multimedia artist with international reputation, has put his cross-cultural experiences, with great consciousness and sensitivity, into his visual languages of symbolizing daily objects to unveil the cultural experience and social reality. The other artist, Yang Shu，has been always cohesive in the style of graffiti, using a language featuring agitate figures and strident colors. Instead of simply copying from the western modernism and postmodernism, he audaciously combines his works inspired by western art and artists with methods of Chinese traditional painting and spirit of its culture.