ZHAO GANG – ACQUIRING IDENTITY
2018-06-18Shaped 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.
Opposite – The Women in the Bamboo Forest, 2012
Exhibition runs through to July 10th, 2018
Long March Space & TIMEZONE 8
Restaurant & Bar
Beijing
