Multiple Perspectives: New Works by Xie Xiaoze
When | 27 Feb 2014 - 12 Apr 2014 |
Where | Chambers Fine Art 522 West 19th Street New York, NY 10011 United States |
Enquiry | 212 414 1169 |
Anchoring the exhibition is a new group of paintings from the Chinese Library series and a selection of works from the Both Sides Now series. The former were painted while Xie was living in Beijing on the Stanford Beijing Overseas Studies Program in 2012. While departing from photographic source material as is normally the case, the monumental Chinese Library No. 55 verges on abstraction, transformed by Xie’s bravura handling of his materials.
In complete contrast are the paintings from the Both Sides Now series which use as source material pages from newspapers in which images from the reverse have bled through to the front. Using a complicated process and painting in both oil and acrylic, Xie achieves richly layered effects that convey the saturation with information characteristic of modern society. The tragic and the trivial co-exist within the confines of each canvas. Xie has said that in his work he “seeks to engage the dialogue between painting and photography, the discourse of the social and political potential of art, as well as critical issues of Conceptualism and aestheticism.”
Inevitably, perhaps, Xie turned to Weibo as the most current means of conveying the kind of information and opinions that used to be conveyed through books and newspapers. Far more immediate in effect than printed media, and arguably more powerful in impact, Weibo provided Xie with thematic material that touches on many of the most sensitive issues in China today, social, political and environmental..
To a degree, Multiple Perspectives may be viewed as an installation which powerfully evokes the changes that have taken place in means of communication as printed matter gives way to the internet. There is a poignant contrast between the monumental Chinese Books painted in a traditional manner and the fleeting images derived from Weibo, plucked from obscurity and freely transformed on aluminum panels.
For further information please contact cfa@chambersfineart.com.
Photo courtesy of the artist and Chambers Fine Art, NY
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