Li Shan & Zhang Pingjie
24 Nov - 08 Dec 2007
LI SHAN & ZHANG PINGJIE
"The Pumpkin Project"
Bio-Art Exhibition
Opening:Saturday, November 24th 2007, 3-5pm
Date: Nov 24, 2007 - Dec 08, 2007
As one of the chief subjects of the 21 century, biological gene engineering is now rebuilding our world. From genovariation to alive art, from intravital lab to art studio, the combination of biotechnology and art stimulate the imagination of artist’s to create a broad brand new art space.
From November 24th to December 8th 2007, ShanghART is glad to show the bio-art work “Pumpkin Project” by Li Shan and Zhang Pingjie. This is the first time for ShanghART Gallery even for the nation to exhibit such living art works by biological gene engineering creation.
The two cooperators are: Li Shan, a pioneer artist of the so called 85 new wave art, one of the finest representatives of political pop art who started his bio-art experiments in 1998 and create a painting Reading of a recombination of a butterfly and a fish, and Zhang Pingjie, a critic who published the first bio-art thesis in China in 2002 (Art China, May, 2005).
Actually, their first consideration of bio-art was in 1995. When Li Shan got to New York for the first time, he already talked with Zhang Pingjie about the outline of the future art he wanted to engage in. That is bio-art. For this, Li Shan read great amount of biological documents and visited biologists at Columbia University, while Zhang Pingjie started to work over bio-art and study the works by Li Shan at the same time. From 2003 to 2006, Li Shan created a series of shocking bio-art images entitled Reading. He tried using digital photography and computer science to create a variation of living image works of multiple kinds of insects, plants and human imageries, or insects with the artist’s own skin. And Zhang Pingjie published Reading – A Study of Li Shan’s Works.
The works of bio-art are finally live works which is their consensus. So they decided to look for the practical way together. The topic of fruits and vegetables is always an important part of bio-art research programs. As to plants like flowers and grass, vegetables usually have stronger impression of shape visually. And it even can change them beyond recognition through gene conversion. This is their original proposal which give the birth to today’s Pumpkin Project through repeating argumentation and filtration.
The implementing of the Pumpkin Project is that under the help of vegetable breeding experts, they as a group made their fantasy of strange lives into real alive things. In the exhibition hall, full of extending pumpkins, visitors will see the colorful pumpkin fruits from genovariation and gene recombination together with the proposal sketch’s and pictures documenting the process. In the experiment of the Pumpkin Project, the artists put attention to the variation on the pumpkins’ shape. Li Shan once said, as a Creater, it fixed, that’s the problem. Although the new life after manmade variation is weak, the activity of its physicality still makes the artist exciting. They seemed to get a view of a space that was opened by unpredictable new ideas and possibilities. On the other hand, the possibility and influence of controlling a life will sure become an explosive subject.
Li Shan, born in 1942, Lanxi, Heilongjiang graduated from Shanghai Academy of Drama in 1968. His works were invited to take part in international important exhibitions and home and abroad museum and art museum exhibitions. Such as: Li Shan, ShanghART H-Space, Shanghai (2007); 85 New Wave-The Birth of Chinese Contemporary Art, Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing (2007); Art in Motion, Moca Shanghai, Shanghai(2006); The Wall - Reshaping Contemporary Chinese Art, UB Art Gallery, UB Anderson Gallery and Albrigh-Knox Art Gallery, University at Buffalo Art Galleries, Buffalo, New York, USA; Millennium Art Museum, Beijing(2005); The First Guangzhou Trienniale-Reinterpretation: A Decade of Experimental Chinese Art (1990-2000), Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou(2002); Inside Out: New Chinese Art, Exhibition of Art from China, Taiwan and Hong Kong-Curated by Gao Minglu, Asia Society Galleries; PS1, New York; SFMoMA / Asian Art Galleries, San Francisco; Museo de Arte Contemporaneo, Monterrey, Mexico; Tacoma Art Museum and the Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, WA, USA; Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong(1998); 22nd International Biennial of São Paolo, Brazil(1994); 45th International Art Exhibition Venice Biennale-Cardinal Points of the Arts, Venice, Italy(1993); China Avant-garde, National Art Museum of China, Beijing(1989); First Shanghai Concave – Convex Exhibition, Xuhui Cultural Centre, Shanghai(1986).
Zhang Pingjie, born in Shanghai, live in New York and Shanghai, is a critic and curator. He edited CHINESE CONTEMPORARY ART BIENNIAL ALMANAC, 1991; studied in National Hoger Institute en Koninklijke Academie Voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerpen , Belgium from 1992 to 1994; went to U.S.A and became a visiting scholar of the John Cage Trust, and helped the director Laura Kuhn’s China visiting in 1996; researched brief Chinese contemporary artists’ abroad travelling and published Resistance Not Alone: The “Silk Road” of Overseas Chinese Artists (TENDENCY Quarterly , Nov, 1999, Boston, USA) from 1995 to 1999; plotted Chinese Avant-Gard Performance Art 1986-2000, New York, 2001; found “REEL CHINA Documentary Biennial”, New York, 2001; published the first bio-art thesis at home: Variety – An Art Subject of Biological Century (Art China, 5th, 2002).; published: REEL CHINA–A New Look at Contemporary Chinese Documentary , Shanghai, China, 2005; brought out Li Shan Solo Exhibition, Chambers Fine Art, New York, and published READING – A Study of Li Shan’s Works,2006. As an artist, he had some exhibition in home and abroad museums like Shanghai Art Museum in the eighties and nineties of last century.
"The Pumpkin Project"
Bio-Art Exhibition
Opening:Saturday, November 24th 2007, 3-5pm
Date: Nov 24, 2007 - Dec 08, 2007
As one of the chief subjects of the 21 century, biological gene engineering is now rebuilding our world. From genovariation to alive art, from intravital lab to art studio, the combination of biotechnology and art stimulate the imagination of artist’s to create a broad brand new art space.
From November 24th to December 8th 2007, ShanghART is glad to show the bio-art work “Pumpkin Project” by Li Shan and Zhang Pingjie. This is the first time for ShanghART Gallery even for the nation to exhibit such living art works by biological gene engineering creation.
The two cooperators are: Li Shan, a pioneer artist of the so called 85 new wave art, one of the finest representatives of political pop art who started his bio-art experiments in 1998 and create a painting Reading of a recombination of a butterfly and a fish, and Zhang Pingjie, a critic who published the first bio-art thesis in China in 2002 (Art China, May, 2005).
Actually, their first consideration of bio-art was in 1995. When Li Shan got to New York for the first time, he already talked with Zhang Pingjie about the outline of the future art he wanted to engage in. That is bio-art. For this, Li Shan read great amount of biological documents and visited biologists at Columbia University, while Zhang Pingjie started to work over bio-art and study the works by Li Shan at the same time. From 2003 to 2006, Li Shan created a series of shocking bio-art images entitled Reading. He tried using digital photography and computer science to create a variation of living image works of multiple kinds of insects, plants and human imageries, or insects with the artist’s own skin. And Zhang Pingjie published Reading – A Study of Li Shan’s Works.
The works of bio-art are finally live works which is their consensus. So they decided to look for the practical way together. The topic of fruits and vegetables is always an important part of bio-art research programs. As to plants like flowers and grass, vegetables usually have stronger impression of shape visually. And it even can change them beyond recognition through gene conversion. This is their original proposal which give the birth to today’s Pumpkin Project through repeating argumentation and filtration.
The implementing of the Pumpkin Project is that under the help of vegetable breeding experts, they as a group made their fantasy of strange lives into real alive things. In the exhibition hall, full of extending pumpkins, visitors will see the colorful pumpkin fruits from genovariation and gene recombination together with the proposal sketch’s and pictures documenting the process. In the experiment of the Pumpkin Project, the artists put attention to the variation on the pumpkins’ shape. Li Shan once said, as a Creater, it fixed, that’s the problem. Although the new life after manmade variation is weak, the activity of its physicality still makes the artist exciting. They seemed to get a view of a space that was opened by unpredictable new ideas and possibilities. On the other hand, the possibility and influence of controlling a life will sure become an explosive subject.
Li Shan, born in 1942, Lanxi, Heilongjiang graduated from Shanghai Academy of Drama in 1968. His works were invited to take part in international important exhibitions and home and abroad museum and art museum exhibitions. Such as: Li Shan, ShanghART H-Space, Shanghai (2007); 85 New Wave-The Birth of Chinese Contemporary Art, Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing (2007); Art in Motion, Moca Shanghai, Shanghai(2006); The Wall - Reshaping Contemporary Chinese Art, UB Art Gallery, UB Anderson Gallery and Albrigh-Knox Art Gallery, University at Buffalo Art Galleries, Buffalo, New York, USA; Millennium Art Museum, Beijing(2005); The First Guangzhou Trienniale-Reinterpretation: A Decade of Experimental Chinese Art (1990-2000), Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou(2002); Inside Out: New Chinese Art, Exhibition of Art from China, Taiwan and Hong Kong-Curated by Gao Minglu, Asia Society Galleries; PS1, New York; SFMoMA / Asian Art Galleries, San Francisco; Museo de Arte Contemporaneo, Monterrey, Mexico; Tacoma Art Museum and the Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, WA, USA; Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong(1998); 22nd International Biennial of São Paolo, Brazil(1994); 45th International Art Exhibition Venice Biennale-Cardinal Points of the Arts, Venice, Italy(1993); China Avant-garde, National Art Museum of China, Beijing(1989); First Shanghai Concave – Convex Exhibition, Xuhui Cultural Centre, Shanghai(1986).
Zhang Pingjie, born in Shanghai, live in New York and Shanghai, is a critic and curator. He edited CHINESE CONTEMPORARY ART BIENNIAL ALMANAC, 1991; studied in National Hoger Institute en Koninklijke Academie Voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerpen , Belgium from 1992 to 1994; went to U.S.A and became a visiting scholar of the John Cage Trust, and helped the director Laura Kuhn’s China visiting in 1996; researched brief Chinese contemporary artists’ abroad travelling and published Resistance Not Alone: The “Silk Road” of Overseas Chinese Artists (TENDENCY Quarterly , Nov, 1999, Boston, USA) from 1995 to 1999; plotted Chinese Avant-Gard Performance Art 1986-2000, New York, 2001; found “REEL CHINA Documentary Biennial”, New York, 2001; published the first bio-art thesis at home: Variety – An Art Subject of Biological Century (Art China, 5th, 2002).; published: REEL CHINA–A New Look at Contemporary Chinese Documentary , Shanghai, China, 2005; brought out Li Shan Solo Exhibition, Chambers Fine Art, New York, and published READING – A Study of Li Shan’s Works,2006. As an artist, he had some exhibition in home and abroad museums like Shanghai Art Museum in the eighties and nineties of last century.