Exhibition
Xue Song: Pheonix Art from the Ashes
Curator
Jeffrey John Spalding
Duration
18th May,2019—14th July,2019
Venue
Long Museum (West Bund) Gallery 1
No. 3398, Longteng Avenue, Xuhui District, Shanghai, China
About the exhibition
From 18th May to 14th July,2019, Long Museum (West Bund) will launch a large-scale solo exhibition "Pheonix Art from the Ashes" by artist Xue Song. The exhibition is curated by Jeffrey John Spalding, presenting the Xue Song's artistic creation spanning more than 30 years. The exhibited works include Xue Song's early attempts to collage the inscriptions, and works artist keeps developing and reshaping development and reshaping "Dialogue with masters series", "History and reality series", " City and youth series ", “Traditional landscape series”, "Foam Series" etc.
Xue Song, Structural calligraphy, Acrylic on canvas, collage, mixed media, 168×168cm×6, 2018
In order to match the large space of the main exhibition hall of Long Museum (West Bund), this exhibition will present the latest work of Xue Song, “Gene genealogy”. This large-scale creation consists of 100 small works, each of them is a Chinese surname, which together spell out a map of China. From his earliest art student days, he has been enamoured by the form of written text. In the western world ‘penmanship’ is a topic of the long-forgotten past, typewriters, computers and now voice messaging translators have all but eradicated the handiwork of handwriting. Xue Song holds on. He loves the formal appearance of hand-written text in all its forms: ancient and current. It is the leitmotif to his art.
Xue Song, Calligraphy Imagery, Acrylic on canvas, collage, mixed media, 168×168cm×2, 2019
The rich historical and cultural images recorded in books, publications, newspapers, etc. are ingeniously burned and collaged to create works with regional characteristics. It is a new creative direction of Xue Song. The exhibition will also present a group of "Shanghai Postcards" (8 spells). Xue Song has lived and worked in Shanghai for more than 30 years and is full of affection for the city. Through this group of works, the audience will see a group of vivid and rich "Shanghai style map" of the era and historical culture.
Xue Song’s art is a kind of rebirth, he attempts to re-make art from its abandoned ruins to form something new, fresh, individual and deeply personal. Their art offers an emblem of a contrived ritualistic scorched earth policy. The studio fires in early 90s consumed some of the works of Xue Song. These initial fires and ongoing ritual cleansings and burnings of art history texts have created raw material, when mixed with painting medium to produce the black lines that outline his work.
Xue Song, Oracle Imagery, Acrylic on canvas, collage, mixed media, 168×168cm×10, 2019
Xue Song, Oracle Imagery (detail), Acrylic on canvas, collage, mixed media, 168×168cm×10, 2019
Xue Song is knowledgeable and appreciative of the centuries-old distinguished painters and calligraphers of China and Asia. He was among the first wave of Chinese artists to embrace the quixotic, complex weave of 19th and 20th Century western modernism. The work of Xue Song ransacks art history, shamelessly quoting, appropriating and overpainting images from a glorious legacy. He proffers the re-birth of art and himself by admixing western and Asian art history into a palpable paste.
Xue Song, Four seasons - spring summer autumn winter, Acrylic on canvas, collage, mixed media, 250×100cm×4, 2018
Xue Song, Spring, Acrylic on canvas, collage, mixed media, 250×100cm×4, 2018
Xue Song, Foam, Acrylic on canvas, collage, mixed media, 150×150cm×3, 2018
Xue Song, Foam (detail), Acrylic on canvas, collage, mixed media, 150×150cm×3, 2018
Xue Song, Dialogue with Piet Mondrian - gain new insights through reviewing old material, Acrylic on canvas, collage, mixed media, 200×200cm, 2012-2019
About the artist
About the curator
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