`Enjoy` - pdf catalogue of the exhibition

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茹小凡
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Enjoy
XIAO FAN
茹小凡
24 CORK STREET LONDON W1S 3NJ
e: [email protected]
t: 0207 439 6633
www.adamgallery.com
This is the first exhibition of the work of Xiao Fan in the UK. Born in Nanjing, China, Xiao Fan moved to
France in 1983 to attend The National School of Fine Art in Paris, and has been based in Europe since
that date. He received a grant to study and work through ‘la Casa Velasquez’ in Madrid in 1988 and
1990. He has since exhibited continuously in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, then in the
USA and lately in Asia. In 2005 Xiao Fan exhibited his works in the Museum of Modern Art in Shanghai,
and a monograph entitled ‘Safe Contact’ was published to accompany the exhibition.
Xiao Fan’s work deals with obsession and pleasure consumption. He explores themes of globalisation
and how our sense of reality is constantly changing in a world saturated with information. For more than
ten years now, Xiao Fan has been working with the traditional medium of paint and exploring the notions
of game, pleasure and obsession. With humour, he explores the emptiness of our modern economy but
beneath the transparent and interlaced shapes and pastel colours of his imagery, there is an undefined
menace.
We are grateful to have an introduction to Xiao Fan’s work by Edward Lucie-Smith. As a well known
commentator on contemporary art and an advisor to the Red Mansion Foundation, Lucie-Smith has
been at the forefront of the recent dramatic emergence of Chinese art on the international art scene.
Foreword by Edward Lucie-Smith
Xiao Fan has spent most of his career in Paris, where he has lived since 1983. French critics associate his work
with a New Pop movement in art – a revival of influences from the 1960s. The truth is, however, that his work
remains uniquely Chinese, and is closely aligned to some of the most significant developments in contemporary
Chinese culture.
Despite the vast, destructive upheaval of the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s – an upheaval that
Xiao Fan lived through as an adolescent and a young man – Chinese culture still tends to divide itself into two
broad categories – literati and popular. Literati culture prides itself on being self-consciously intellectual and
refined. Conceptual artists working in China think of themselves as Neo-Confucians – heirs of the old imperial
bureaucracy. Popular culture is the culture of the street – riotously colorful, exuberantly inventive and not at all
afraid of being kitsch.
It is to this wing of contemporary Chinese art that Xiao Fan belongs. His paintings are stuffed to overflowing
with kitsch objects – toys, cheap jewelry, lipsticks, artificial flowers, balloons of all shapes and sizes. These are
entangled with looping strings in various pastel colours, which sometimes turn into real spaghetti or real rigatoni.
The compositions emphasize the density and complexity of the modern material world. Though the paintings
are anything but abstract, in the sense that they are full of immediately recognizable things, the ‘all-overness’ of
their compositional structure makes it clear that they owe almost as much to American Abstract Expressionism
as they do to Pop Art.
In another part of his production, Xiao Fan has turned his attention to single images of flowers, represented
both in paintings and in sculptures. These are portrayed in a deliberately simplified way, stripped down to
their function as sexual organs. This gives them a strange, alienated quality that suggests a kinship with
classic European Surrealism – with the sculptures of Joan Miró for example. It may also be intended to
recall the fact that, during the stormy years of the Cultural Revolution, cultivating flowers was seen as a
bourgeois, counter-revolutionary act, and was strictly forbidden.
The diversity of Xiao Fan’s sources accurately reflects his situation as a Chinese cosmopolitan. So, too,
does the refinement of his technique – in technical terms, these are extremely accomplished works.
The kitsch element borrowed from Chinese popular culture is disciplined by an exquisite feeling for
the consonance and contrast of colours. It is always evident that his art is the product of an extremely
sophisticated sensibility.
His work shows how Chinese art, in the thirty years that have passed since the death of Mao, has explored
new avenues without cutting itself off from deep roots in the heart of Chinese culture.
1
Enjoy no 41 oil on canvas 195 x 97 cm
2
Enjoy no 36 oil on canvas 146 x 114 cm
3
Enjoy no 40 oil on canvas 150 x 150 cm
4
Poubelle no 9 oil on canvas 114 x 146 cm
5
Enjoy no 34 oil on canvas 150 x 150 cm
6
Enjoy no 42 oil on canvas 195 x 97 cm
7
Enjoy no 39 oil on canvas 150 x 150 cm
8
Flower no 3 4/6 35 x 35 x 90 cm
9
Flower no 8 1/6 35 x 35 x 90 cm
XIAO FAN Biography 1954
Born in Nankin, China
Graduated from Nankin Academy of Fine Arts, China 1982
Graduated from l’Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris, France 1986
Obtained Scholarship from ‘Casa Velasquez’ in Madrid in 1988 and 1990
Lives and works in Paris (since 1983)
Solo Exhibitions 2008 The Mao? Project, Cà Muse - Vicenza, Italy
Enjoy, Adam Gallery London, UK
Orenga de Gaffory, Corsica, France
2007 Enjoy, Galerie RX, Paris, France
2006
Enjoy, Galerie Leehwaik, Seoul, Korea
Galerie Hengevoss-Duerkop, Hamburg, Germany
2005
Safe Contact, Museum of Modern Art, Shanghai, China
Safe Contact, Galerie Quintessens, Utrecht, The Netherlands
Safe Contact, Galerie RX, Paris, France
2004
La botanique - mouvement cent fleurs, Médiathèque of Raymond Poincaré Hospital,
in co-operation with FRAC Ile-de-France, France
Garches Gallery Mickael Goedhuis, New York, USA
Bubble Game, Galerie RX, Paris, France
Bubble Game, White Box, New York, USA
2003
Galerie Quintessens, Utrecht, The Netherlands
Hundred Flowers and recent works, Musée des Ursulines, Macon, France
2002
Charlotte Moser, Geneva, Switzerland
Hundred Flowers, Galerie RX, Paris, France
2001
Hundred Flowers, La Villa Tamaris, Centre d’Art Contemporain, La Seyne sur Mer, France
Galerie Quintessens, Utrecht, The Netherlands
1999
Hundred Flowers, Chapelle Saint Jacques, Saint Gaudens, Ministère de la culture,
DRAC Midi-Pyrénées, France
1998
Galerie Quintessens, Ultrecht, Pays-Bas
Public Collections 2006
Fond National d’Art Contemporain, France
2005
Fondation Salomon, Alex, France
Fondation d’entreprise Colas, France
2003
Musee des Urselines-Macon, France
1998
Fonds Regionaux d’Art Contemporain d’Ile de France, France
Group Exhibitions 2008 2007 2006 2005
2004
2003
2002
2001
1997
1996
1995
1991
1990
1988
Art Paris Galerie RX, Grand Palais, Paris, France
Orangerie du Sénat, Jardin du Luxembourg, Paris, France
French Touch, La Villa Tamaris Contemporary Art Centre, La Seyne-sur-Mer, France
Les Nouveaux Pop, Soma Museum, Seoul, Korea
Les Nouveaux Pop, La Villa Tamaris Contemporary Art Centre, La Seyne-sur-Mer
CIGE, Galerie SUN Peking, China
KIAF, Galerie RX, Seoul, Korea
Art Chicago, Adam Gallery, Chicago, USA
Amsterdam KunstRAI, Galerie RX, Amsterdam, Pays -Bas, The Netherlands
Quintessence, Ecole des Beaux-Art de Nimes, France
Touch Without Danger, curator Zoe Zhang, Shanghai, China
Triennale d’art contemporain, Tirana, Albania
My Favorite things!, curator R. Leydier, Contemporary Art Museum, Lyon, France
Tirana Biennale III (episode V go inside), curator Hou Hanru, Albania
Museum of Art, Duolum, China
Le Triage, Nanterre, curator Richard Leydier, France
Artissima, Galerie RX, Turin, Italy
Art Chicago, Gallery Mickael Goedhuis, USA
Art Brussel, Galerie RX, Bruxelles, Belgium
d.u.m.b.o Arts Center, Brooklyn, USA
Aura, Galerie RX, Paris, France
Exposition inaugurale de la Galerie RX
Autour de la Figuration, L’Onde, Espace culturel de Velizy-Villacoublay, France
Galerie Art Line, Brussels, Belgium
Galerie Charlotte Moser, Geneva, Switzerland
Art Fair Amsterdam, one man show, Galerie Quintessens, Utrecht, The Netherlands
International Contemporary Art Competition, Michelin, Prize: Special Distinction
Spirit of Art, Abbaye de Royaumont, Asnieres sur Seine, France
Art Cologne, Galerie Lucien Durand, Cologne, Germany
FIAC, Galerie Lucien Durand, Paris, France
Decouvértes, Galerie Van Melle, Paris, France
Salon de Mars, Galerie Jacques Barrerè, France
Galerie Fernando Latorre, Saragossa, Spain
Stockholm Art Fair, Galerie Westlund, Stockholm, Sweden
Art Partner: l’art dans l’entreprise, Villa Gillet, Paris, France
Salon des Jeunes Peintres, Grand Palais, Paris, France
Yan Pei-Ming et Ru Xiao-Fan, Espace Vendôme, Paris, France
Galerie Art Promotion, Hong-Kong, China
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