弥金GENE | 赵刚、张德建：对角线

展期 / Duration: 2019.3.16 - 4.30

开幕 / Opening: 2019.3.16, 15:30 - 18:30

地址 / Address: 中国上海市愚园路1088弄愚园公共市集202室

Room 202,Yuyuan Public Market, Lane 1088, Yuyuan Rd, Shanghai, China

(Scroll down for English)

弥金画廊非常荣幸地宣布，将于2019年3月16日推出展览“对角线”，呈现赵刚、张德建两位艺术家的作品。不同的个性与经历让他们都曾寻求变革社会的外在知识宝库，又从中国的历史中汲取各自所需的营养，仿佛对角线的两端，却又在各自的世界里“偏安一隅”，有趣的是，他们都会给自己的作品命名为《无题》。

赵刚曾说自己重画经典古画是想找回中国艺术曾经激进的部分，想知道当时的艺术家在画下这些具有高度颠覆性的山水画时，心里到底在想什么。张德建则强调秩序，以艺术的方式探究客观世界的最本质的规律，让艺术可以无限地接近内心的真实。在中国当代艺术几十年的发展历程中，“西方”一直被作为中国自身发展的参照系而存在着，在不同的历史变革和社会发展中，其作用或隐或显，但从未缺失。

▲ 展览现场

不可避免地，当在时代的洪流中面对无数“十字路口”前的方向选择，艺术家常常处于出世与入世并存的矛盾状态。随着西方近现代思想和艺术流派不断涌入，部分艺术家开始跳出对以往创作模式的单纯反叛，转而开始以一种世界性的视野，重新审视和定位自己的艺术任务。这种反思一旦开始，便会一直贯穿在他们的创作中。

“身份”是两位艺术家都在不断追寻的。“出走”、“回归”、“原地不动”，他们在各自的生命轨迹里，通过对图像语言的探索，实现着各自精神的某种空间场域的再次重塑。

▲ 展览现场

Gene Gallery is glad to announce that the exhibition Diagonal will be held from March 16th to April 30th, presenting the works of two artists Zhao Gang and Zhang Dejian. Different personalities and life experiences impelled both of Zhao and Zhang to look for inspirations as well as draw knowledge from social changes and the history of China. Their works are like the two ends of a diagonal, showing contradictions as well as harmony in their own corner of the world. By chance, both of them like to name their artworks ‘untitled’.

Zhao Gang once remarked that his re-try of traditional paintings was an attempt to reconstruct radical parts of Chinese art, trying to understand the consideration of ancient artists according to their groundbreaking landscapes. As for Zhang Dejian, he emphasizes the importance of  ‘order’. He uses art as an approach to explore the intrinsic rules of the physical world and to get closer to his inner truth. Through decades in the development of Chinese contemporary art, ‘the west’ has always been regarded as the reference. Implicit or explicit, its influences are never faded all the way through the historic revolutions and social developments of China.

Inevitably, when facing the dilemma of endless choice-making processes in an ever-changing era, artists seem to be in the paradox of being inside or outside of mundane life. With the influx of western thoughts and art styles, some artists step out of the previous simple rebellion of art patterns, re-examining and re-positioning their artworks under a global perspective. This kind of reflection once started, keeps running through their creative life.

‘Identity’ is what both Zhao Gang and Zhang Dejian have always been tracing. They escape, return, and stand still in their own life journey, rebuilding a part of their spiritual world through the language of the image.

张德建（1952年出生于天津），现生活工作于天津。1977年毕业于天津美术学院绘画系（学士），1989年毕业于天津美术学院油画系（硕士），1998-1999获公派留学奖金赴比利时安特卫普皇家美术学院学习。1989年至今任教于天津美术学院油画系，现任教授，硕士生导师。张德建的绘画试图通过对日常景观顺其自然的自发提炼，诠释感知与观看之中的视觉动机，并从而借助绘画行动重现其描述实景与再构心境的精神初源。

张德建近年来的部分展览包括：“形式的意味：张德建绘画三十年”，蜂巢当代艺术中心，中国北京（2017）；“独立团——异志绘画八人展”，三远当代艺术中心，中国天津（2014）等。

Zhang Dejian, born in 1952, Tianjin, currently live and work in Tianjin. Zhang graduated from the painting department of the Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts (TAFA) in 1977, received his MFA from TAFA in 1989. From 1998 to 1999, he studied at Royal Academy of Arts in Antwerp, Belgium with a public scholarship. Sine 1989, he has been teaching painting at TAFA as a professor and supervisor for postgraduates. Zhang’s paintings attempt to spontaneously extract visual elements form daily scenes, interpreting the visual motives in sensation and vision.

Zhang’s recent exhibitions including the Meaning of Form: Zhang Dejian’s Three Decades of Painting, Hive Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, China (2017); Independent Group - Exhibition of Alternative paintings of Eight Artists, N3 Center for Contemporary Art, Tianjin, China (2014), etc.

赵刚（1961年出生于北京），现生活工作于北京及纽约。18岁参与星星画会团体，后开始其漫长的海外学习与工作经历。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学院，并于纽约工作、生活二十余年。赵刚的艺术实践始终围绕着身份与历史之间的共生及矛盾，并一再意图通过绘画，摧毁古今美学史中高高在上的权力意志，重塑与解放历史与当下内不断被遮蔽的感知与体验。

赵刚近年来的部分美术馆展览包括：“通往奴役之路II”，圣地亚哥当代艺术博物馆，智利圣地亚哥（2016）；“偶园：赵刚个人作品展”，苏州博物馆，中国苏州（2015）；“通往奴役之路”，UCCA当代艺术中心，中国北京（2015）等。

Zhao Gang, born in 1961, Beijing, currently work and live in Beijing and New York. Zhao joined The Stars Art at the age of eighteen, and then studied and worked overseas. Zhao has studied at National College of Art and Design in Maastricht, Vassar College in New York State, Bard College in New York State and has been living in New York for nearly twenty years. Zhao’s art practice is always about the contradiction between personal identities and histories. Through painting, Zhao attempts to destroy the priority of power in art histories, reconstruct and emancipate the hidden perceptions and experiences in contemporary practices.

Zhao Gang’s recent exhibitions including The Road to Serfdom II, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, Santiago, Chile (2016); Paramour’s Garden, Suzhou Museum, Suzhou, China (2015); Zhao Gang: The Road to Serfdom, UCCA, Beijing, China, (2015).