Zhang Ding
21 May - 10 Jul 2011
ZHANG DING
Opening
21 May - 10 July, 2011
Since his solo exhibition “Tools” in 2007, Zhang Ding changed his focus on urban, marginal and realist issues that constituted the main aspect of his early works, to develop an heterogeneous space using dramatic scenes, consisting of installations, videos, and other media works. His works composed of various elements and substances, sometime opposing or even destroying each other, skillfully turn a reality filled with contradictions into a unique misplaced “landscape”.
“Opening” is, after “Tools” and “Law”, another main exhibition by Zhang Ding, who this time focused on “aesthetic standards”, juxtaposing various “criteria”. However, the most startling is the way the artist managed to control and create a provoking atmosphere through a performance that was held in the exhibition space.
After the opening of “Opening”, one can now view two separate spaces with: a video of the lively “opening”, and an after-uproar venue, rational, and utterly classical. Marble pedestals, sculptures of young athletes and gymnastics equipment, all constitute different elements that embody “aesthetic standards” as we usually conceive them. What is interesting is that once presented, they don’t seem so “standard” anymore. The artist restructured classicism in an extreme way, but dispelled all the things around art performance; this series of installation understatedly describes today’s awkwardness on “standard”. This kind of understatement is then broken again by Zhang Ding who uses the word “Opening” as the title of this exhibition. In the society, openings are part of any event-related affairs, it is a social rule, or it is a habitual boring process with a nice show, and this illusory entertaining aspect precisely attracted the artist. In this planed, spectacular opening party, spectators participating to the violation of a cold exhibition became part of the work.
Opening
21 May - 10 July, 2011
Since his solo exhibition “Tools” in 2007, Zhang Ding changed his focus on urban, marginal and realist issues that constituted the main aspect of his early works, to develop an heterogeneous space using dramatic scenes, consisting of installations, videos, and other media works. His works composed of various elements and substances, sometime opposing or even destroying each other, skillfully turn a reality filled with contradictions into a unique misplaced “landscape”.
“Opening” is, after “Tools” and “Law”, another main exhibition by Zhang Ding, who this time focused on “aesthetic standards”, juxtaposing various “criteria”. However, the most startling is the way the artist managed to control and create a provoking atmosphere through a performance that was held in the exhibition space.
After the opening of “Opening”, one can now view two separate spaces with: a video of the lively “opening”, and an after-uproar venue, rational, and utterly classical. Marble pedestals, sculptures of young athletes and gymnastics equipment, all constitute different elements that embody “aesthetic standards” as we usually conceive them. What is interesting is that once presented, they don’t seem so “standard” anymore. The artist restructured classicism in an extreme way, but dispelled all the things around art performance; this series of installation understatedly describes today’s awkwardness on “standard”. This kind of understatement is then broken again by Zhang Ding who uses the word “Opening” as the title of this exhibition. In the society, openings are part of any event-related affairs, it is a social rule, or it is a habitual boring process with a nice show, and this illusory entertaining aspect precisely attracted the artist. In this planed, spectacular opening party, spectators participating to the violation of a cold exhibition became part of the work.