【长征空间展讯】“赵刚：购买的身份”将于5月16日周三下午4点开幕

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“赵刚：购买的身份”

"Zhao Gang: Acquiring Identity"

2018.5.16 - 7.10

2018.5.16

2:00 PM

媒体预览

Media Preview

4:00 PM

开幕

Opening

地点：长征空间&东八时区餐厅与酒吧

Venue： Long March Space/Timezone 8 Restaurant & Bar

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赵刚个展“购买的身份”是赵刚与长征空间合作后的首次个展，展览以艺术家自成一格的展览方式呈现了其一系列精选绘画。作品将同时展示于长征空间及邻近的东八时区餐厅与酒吧。这样的呈现方式与他的艺术实践和生命历程紧密关联，并进一步地糅杂了他的不同身份，即作为艺术家的赵刚与酒吧谈客的Gang。

作为星星画会最年轻的成员，赵刚的艺术道路始于70年代参与中国先锋艺术，同时也得益于他在欧美多年的留学、工作与生活经历。他的绘画不拘于形式与图像，画面中同时展现了关于中国古代宫廷肖像的联想与印象派的绘画技法，甚至描绘粗俗或亵渎的主题以混淆叙事。

在展览“购买的身份”中，赵刚在长征空间内重塑了他70年代工作生活过的12平米的宿舍空间。此空间将展出一批鲜少见到的新老作品，作品源自过往赵刚对艺术的自主性探索。正如先前他创作的中国失败革命者的系列作品，他用冷幽默来比喻他作为一个归国者或新晋移民的身份状态；这批作品再次熟稔地捕捉了他在社会与历史洪流中的个人状态。

而在东八时区餐厅与酒吧的展览部分则是对赵刚混迹于纽约经历的回响。最初，东八时区餐厅与酒吧于2001年作为艺术类书店由美籍的罗伯特·博纳欧创立，他的身份与发展轨迹正巧与赵刚的个人经历相背而行、互为镜像。东八时区不仅是赵刚从纽约回国、再次成为一名北京本地艺术家后喜欢的去处，同时它也总让赵刚想起过往的纽约酒吧，这种场景转换契合地袒露了赵刚个人经历与艺术实践的联系。

本次个展“购买的身份”的作品选择与展示方式都意在回归对艺术家绘画语言的关注，其中贯穿着赵刚对身份、历史及其混杂性等艺术主题的持续探索。

关于艺术家

赵刚（1961年出生于北京），现工作和生活于北京和纽约。年仅18岁时参加星星画会——此团体是最早的前卫艺术家群体，为中国当代艺术的发展铺设了重要基石。此后，他留学于欧洲和纽约，曾就读于荷兰Maastricht国家艺术学院、美国纽约州Vassar学院、美国纽约州Bard大学，并于纽约生活、工作二十余年。在此期间，他逐步发展出鲜明的国际化特征，并创作出风格多元的作品。在2004年回到北京后，赵刚不断地把焦点投向了他的独特的个人经历与中国历史之间的纠缠——他既生于此地，却又是陌生的新晋移民。

赵刚重要美术馆个展包括：“通往奴役之路 II”（圣地亚哥当代艺术博物馆，智利，2016）； “偶园：赵刚个人作品展”（苏州博物馆，苏州，2015）”；“通往奴役之路”（尤伦斯当代艺术中心，北京，2015）；“病夫”（今日美术馆，北京，2011）。重要群展包括：“门”（PS1, 艺术机构 / Blum Helman 画廊，纽约，1990）。他曾参加2005年横滨三年展、2007年纽约表演艺术双年展、2008年广州三年展等重要双／三年展。

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Zhao Gang: Acquiring Identity

2018.5.16－7.10

Long March Space/Timezone 8 Restaurant & Bar, Beijing

“Acquiring Identity,” Zhao Gang’s first solo exhibition at Long March Space, presents a selection of new and old paintings by the artist through distinctive display methods taken at his own initiative. The works are divided between Long March Space’s gallery, and Timezone 8, a nearby café in Beijing’s 798 Art District. The paintings and their presentation tie together the idiosyncratic aspects of Zhao’s practice and identity, playing off of and further complicating the relationship between his role as an artist and his aura as a public figure in Beijing’s cultural community.

Shaped by his artistic beginnings as the youngest member of the avant-garde Stars Group in late 1970s China as much as the decades he spent in Europe and the United States, Zhao Gang’s paintings freely mix forms and imagery, juxtaposing perspectives redolent of Chinese court portraiture with the techniques of Impressionism, further destabilized by profane, even vulgar, subject matter. Along with new portraits of anonymous figures, “Acquiring Identity” is partially comprised of previously unseen works, featuring semi-abstracted nudes and Stalin’s disembodied head. Just as his previous paintings of failed Chinese revolutionaries dryly referenced his status as a émigré and returnee, here Zhao again deftly captures the condition of the individual captured within social and historical forces.

Inside Long March Space the 12-square-meter dormitory space Zhao Gang lived and worked in during the 1970s has been recreated to house rarely-seen paintings, recalling the phenomenon of so-called “apartment art” from 80s and 90s Beijing, when artists lacking formal venues surreptitiously organized exhibitions at home. In evoking this form now Zhao Gang calls draws parallels between eras, searching for moral bravery and autonomy in art. The placement of works in Timezone 8, speaks to Zhao Gang’s appreciation of the café as an echo of his old haunts in New York and his reputation as a bon vivant. Founded by American Robert Bernell as an art book publishing house in 2001, the venue takes on additional significance from the owner’s position as the potential inverse of Zhao’s personal journey. “Acquiring Identity” brings together Zhao’s life and practice, continuing his explorations into identity, history, and hybridity.

About the artist

Zhao Gang (b. 1961, Beijing) currently lives and works in New York and Beijing. He made his artistic debut as a member of the Stars Group, one of the first avant-garde artist groups to open the era of contemporary art in China, when he was just 18 years old. Shortly thereafter he pursued formal art education in Europe and then New York, studying at the State Academy of Fine Art, Maastricht, Holland; Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, USA; MFA, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, USA. Afterwards, Zhao Gang lived overseas for over two decades, developing a diverse body of work as his perspective became distinctively international. Since returning to Beijing in 2006, Zhao Gang has turned his ever-expanding focus toward the entanglement of his personal past with Chinese history and his unique position, at once a native and a newcomer, in China today.

His selected museum solo exhibitions include: The Road to Serfdom II, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, Santiago, Chile, 2016; Paramour’s Garden, Suzhou Museum, Suzhou, China, 2015; The Road to Serfdom, Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, China, 2015; Sick Man: Zhao Gang, Today Art Museum, Beijing, China, 2011. His selected group exhibitions include: The Door, P.S.1 Institute of the Arts/Blum Helman Gallery, New York, USA, 1990. He has participated in important biennial/triennial exhibitions such as PERFORMA 07, the Guangzhou Triennial, and the Yokohama Triennial.

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