2013 | Dream Shock

LIU Zheng: Dream Shock 

Opening: June 1, 2013, 4:00 p.m.

Duration: June 1—July 15, 2013

Venue: Three Shadows + 3 Gallery

Courtyard No. 155A, Caochangdi, Chaoyang district, Beijing, China

Tel.: +86 10 64319063

Three Shadows +3 Gallery is pleased to present inaugural solo exhibition of Liu Zheng: Dream Shock.  With this elegant, traditional and poetic title, Dream Shock in contrast is an attempt to overthrow the present world of vision are made, a desperate march towards the ultimate truth by the artist. Liu Zheng was creating and manipulating the subjects to visualize long-standing concepts. He set off to replicate classic Chinese legends and folklore that no one had previously imagined visualizing. Through adequate regrouping and reshuffling of visions, he wanted to transform these tales into black humor-motiffed scenes that took place in the visions of daily life.

For over 30 years, the realm of vision has been trying out ways to establish a narration of the body. Invigorated by the essence of aesthetics, arts, spiritualism and vision, it seeks high and low for a legitimate presentation of the flesh which has been banned constantly. Pitiful, the more legal the presentation of the narration of body gets, the more vanished the true flesh become in the celebration and the noise of the art of vision. I think the aesthetics of flesh has murdered the narration of flesh. The aesthetics of flesh, in the most widely known sense, it’s to zoom out from the microcosmic to the macrocosmic. In the process, the focus is lost. Strictly speaking, the aesthetics of flesh is anti revolutionary practice. It fears all the acute social issues that are involved. To empower the flesh to become a powerful narration of the body, we need to put the flesh into a spacious political environment. Whatever is pretentious and staged are to be get rid of. The core of our daily action of staring should be honesty, intelligence and even abandonment. Furthermore, the order of the body needs to be restructured into an open, direct, microcosmically meaningful order.

Liu Zheng hopes that he can rewrite about the body narration. His approaches may seem radical on the surface but deep inside he never loses the calmness. Because of the fine details of the shadows and lines, the fearlessness in the composure, the cutting edge of the images, the height of the spirit and the daring gaze in the microcosmic sense, Liu Zheng’s body narration has been elevated onto the level of visual politics. Just like awakening from a dream, his works make the world of the mortals tremble, fear, bellow and flee. Through his arts, Liu Zheng speaks to us that only when we stare with the most genuine attitude that our action of staring can obtain its full value. Trembles, fears, bellows and attempts to escape only indicate how hypocritical we are.

（By Yang Xiaoyan, Professor of Faculty of Communication and Design,  Sun Yat-sen University ）