2014 | The Position of Interference

The Position of Interference: Zhao Liang Solo Exhibition

Curator: Su Wei

Duration：Mar. 22, 2014——May. 18, 2014

Opening：Mar. 22, 2014 (Sat.)    4:00 p.m.

Venue：ThreeShadows +3 Gallery, No.155 A, Caochangdi, Chaoyang District, Beijing, China

Tel: +86 10 6431 9063

Recording is at the crux of Zhao Liang’s work. People often only notice the cold, cruel reality through his lens, but very little attention is given to the kind of ascetic mental qualities, which are also qualities projected by his creative approach. The ‘movement’ and ‘stillness’ of reality, and the ‘meditative’ and ‘agitated’ mental spaces, together constitute four dimensions of Zhao Liang’s work.

Through unbounded possibilities of reducing reality to interrogating individual mental worlds, this artistic position distinguishes Zhao Liang’s work from the terrain of discourse covered by more-ordinary interventionist practices. This exhibition will be presenting the video work Bored Youth (2000) with mounted photographs in traditional Chinese painting to reveal distinctive contrasts and resonances. Together, from our tireless acts of recording and intervening, there is a deficiency in questions raised by the art context directed towards the foundation of formal creativity – Zhao Liang’s work proposes a method of opening up mental spaces with a kind of tragic meaning.

About the Artist

Zhao Liang

1971 Born in Dandong, works and lives in Beijing. He graduated from Luxun Academy of Fine Arts in 
1993. He is an independent documentary filmmaker as well as an artist in photography and video art.

Zhao Liang’s documentary films has been involved in various international film festivals, including: London Open City Docs Fest, Documenta Madrid (2012); Berlin International Film Festival, Hong Kong International Film Festival (2011), Documentary Edge Aucland, Hong Kong International Film Festival (2010); Cannes Film Festival, Lisbon Doc Lisboa (2009); Locarno Film Festival (2008); Nantes’ 3 Continents Film Festival, International Nuremberg Human Rights Festival (2007); Amsterdam International Documentary Film Festival (2005, 2006); Taiwan International Documentary Festival, International Independent Film Festival Buenos Aires (2002); Marseille International Documentary Festival (2001) etc..

Zhao Liang has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions at local and international contemporary art institutions, including: ThreeShadows +3 Gallery (Beijing), Three Shadows Photography Art Center (Beijing), Pekin Fine Arts (Beijing), L. A. Gallery (Frankfurt), Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), Chinese Arts Centre (Manchester), Museo Reina Sofía (Madrid), Haus der Kulturen der Welt (Berlin), National Museum of Fine Arts (La Paz), Stasiatiska Museum (Stockholm), Contemporary Arts Museum (Houston), Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma (Helsinki), ICP (New York), The Japan Foundation Asia Center (Tokyo), etc..

About the Curator

Su Wei

Born in 1982, Su Wei is an independent art critic and curator based in Beijing and Hong Kong. He has carried out a two-year dissertation research between 2008 and 2010 at Free University Berlin. His writing have appeared in various art journals and publications. The focus of his work is theoretical practice and writing on contemporary art. Su Wei participated in the 2012 Curatorial Intensive of ICI (Independent Curators International) in New York.

He was involved in the curatorial team of Little Movements: Self-Practice in Contemporary Art, presented at OCT Contemporary Art Terminal (OCAT), Shenzhen, China (2011). He co-curated the 7th Shenzhen Sculpture Biennale ‘Accidental Message: Art is Not a System, Not a World’ (OCAT). Recently, he curated I’m Not Involved in Aesthetic Progress: A Rethinking of Performance (Star Gallery, Beijing, 2013); I am Not Not Not Chen Zhou (Magician Space, Beijing, 2013). In November 2013, he participated in the lecture project Das Bild hinter dem Bild: zur Lage Kunst in China at the Universität der Künste Berlin. In January 2014, he curated the exhibtition Keep the Modern Going: Immersion, Awaiting and Idealism (OCAT Shenzhen).

Works which he has written and published include Little Movements, Self-Practice in Contemporary Art. Su Wei et al., Guangxi Normal University Publishing House, Sep. 2011; Accidental Message: Art is Not a System, Not a World. Su Wei et al., Ling Nan Art Publishing House, Oct. 2012; Individual Expierence: Conversations and Narratives of Chinese Contemporary Art from 1989-2000. Su Wei et al., Ling Nan Art Publishing House, May 2013; Art History after Modernism. Written by Han Belting; translated to Chinese by Su Wei; commented by Su Wei and Carol Yinghua Lu. BeePub Publishing House, Jan. 2014.