Aranya Art Center is pleased to present Life, a solo exhibition by Chinese artist Jiang Zhi, which surveys more than thirty works from 1997 to the present day. The exhibition includes seven recent works that will be on view for the first time and three newly commissioned pieces.
Since the early days of his career in the 1990s, Jiang Zhi has focused his lens on everyday life. His first video work, Fly, Fly (1997), meticulously captures a resident’s silhouettes and the interiors of her home during times of economic transformation. In Fade (2016-2017), he reproduced a series of home furnishings imprinted with epochal visual characteristics, representing the imagination of one or two generations for a wonderful life. As much as the "wonderful" may seem cliché, Jiang Zhi discovered the wonders in the conventional and their meanings early in his artistic practice. Seeing through the blindfold of these words, Jiang tries to hold on to the values of life abandoned in the contemporary world.
We long for life’s generosity, fear the bitterness of her impermanence and realizations in her name. Even the most erudite and wise know comparatively little about life. Using Life as the exhibition title does not suggest an escape from daily routines, but instead reveals bits and pieces of everyday life from which to discover new possibilities within. The artwork titles in the show resonate with the grand theme: Speedy Life (2004) is a video that captures an illegible diary; If by Life You Were Deceived (2024) floats above the Aranya Art Center's Atrium in a celebratory fashion. Other works draw directly from everyday life, including one in which the artist flushes words in airplanes’ bathrooms mid-flights; his decision to "work" at a bank for a period; his videos of fireworks in his residential compound during Chinese New Year. Yet, Life does not only include glamorous and glittering moments, but also what takes place in the shadows, the lost ones, and the untold stories, as in the obscured piece Alive (2013).
The writer George Eliot considered art to be the nearest thing to life; it is a mode of amplifying experience and extending our contact with our fellow men beyond the bounds of our personal lot. Jiang Zhi subtly captures the various ongoing aspects of life amid its trials and tribulations. These works concern forgiveness, drawing inspiration from others, the notion of time and one’s resistance to it, as well as how to save love from dying. Jiang Zhi's art practice is at once elegant and down to earth, passionate and serene, profound and simple, subtle and forthright.
The works in the exhibition Life retain the complexity of their contexts, presenting a gentle and colloquial texture. The unique exhibition space at Aranya Art Center will allow the works in the different galleries to connect and resonate with one another. The recurring elements in this exhibition and its rhythmic ebb and flow aim to mimic RIFF (Repeated Interval Functions) in music theory, marking an inevitable outcome from the artist's continuous practice, which reflect the notions of extension and repetition. The artist consistently discovers and regenerates themes and forms from his works of art.
During the exhibition, Jiang Zhi looks forward to collaborating with the audience, encouraging visitors to whistle on a leaf and take the work Name (2024) with them to their future destinations; they anticipate an embodied presence, to fill in the long waited absence in A Peace Unsettled (2013); in the meditation room, visitors may respond to apologetic voices from their hearts; or read the comforting words suspended in the air as they look upwards.
This exhibition is organized by Wenjie Sun, guest curator and Jiang Ruoyu, curatorial assistant at Aranya Art Center.
Ding Yi
Three Flags
2023
Flag, air blower
Dimensions variable
Commissioned and produced by aranya plein air art project 2023
Installation view, aranya plein air art project
July 7th to October 29th, 2023
Photography Sun Shi
Courtesy of aranya plein air art project
Chen Ruofan
Botanical Bank: 54 Objects Transplanted
2023
Stainless steel, LED, video
400 × 400 × 400 cm
55:92 min.
Commissioned and produced by aranya plein air art project 2023
Installation view, aranya plein air art project
July 7th to October 29th, 2023
Photography Sun Shi
Courtesy of aranya plein air art project
Tom Friedman
Hazmat Love
2017
Stainless steel
150.5 × 118.1 × 107.3 cm
Installation view, aranya plein air art project
July 7th to October 29th, 2023
Photography Sun Shi
Courtesy of the artist, Lehmann Maupin, New York, Hong Kong,
Seoul, London and aranya plein air art project
Haegue Yang
Migratory DMZ Birds on Asymmetric Lens - Duiitt Duiitt Vessel (Gray-Backed Thrush)
2020
Soapstone, 3D printed resin
158 × 89 × 147 cm
Installation view, aranya plein art project
July 7th to October 29th, 2023
Photography Sun Shi
Courtesy of the artist, Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris
and aranya plein air art project
Charles Ray
School Play
2014
Painted fiberglass
193 × 58 × 39 cm
Installation view, aranya plein air art project
July 7th to October 29th, 2023
Photography Sun Shi
© Charles Ray
Courtesy Matthew Marks Gallery and aranya plein air art project
Richard Long
Four Ways
2014
Delabole Slate from Cornwall
490 × 498 × 58 cm
Installation view, aranya plein air art project
July 7th to October 29th, 2023
Photography Sun Shi© Richard Long
Courtesy of Lisson Gallery and aranya plein air art project
Prinz Gholam
Stone Faces (Jin Shan Ling)
2023
Stone
Dimensions variable
Commissioned and produced by aranya plein air art project 2023
Installation view, aranya plein air art project
July 7th to October 29th, 2023
Photography Sun Shi
Courtesy of aranya plein air art project
Robert Mapplethorpe
Self Portrait
1981
Silver gelatin print
58.5 × 61 × 3.2 cm (framed)
Installation view, aranya plein air art project
July 7th to October 29th, 2023
Photography Sun Shi
Courtesy of aranya plein air art project
© Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation. Used by permission.
Courtesy Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, London · Paris · Salzburg · Seoul
David Zink Yi
Washingtonia
2017
Stainless steel
520 × 100 × 100 cm each
Installation view, aranya plein air art project
July 7th to October 29th, 2023
Photography Sun Shi
Courtesy of the artist, KÖNIG GALERIE, Berlin / Seoul
and aranya plein air art project
Alina Chaiderov
Phoenix
2023
Stainless steel, cable protection tube
512 × 300 × 100 cm
Produced by aranya plein air art project 2023
Installation view, aranya plein air art project
July 7th to October 29th, 2023
Photography Sun Shi
Courtesy of aranya plein air art project
Liang Shuo
Little House
2023
Mosaic tiles
Dimensions variable
Commissioned and produced by aranya plein air art project 2023
Installation view, aranya plein air art project
July 7th to October 29th, 2023
Photography Sun Shi
Courtesy of aranya plein air art project
Christine Sun Kim
A Permanent Tourist In A Foreign Language
2023
Inkjet printing on stainless-steel sign post
225 × 150 cm × 7 parts
Commissioned and produced by aranya plein air art project 2023
Installation view, aranya plein air art project
July 7th to October 29th, 2023
Photography Sun Shi
Courtesy of aranya plein air art project
Vivian Suter
Untitled
Undated
Mixed media on canvas
Dimensions variable
Installation view, aranya plein air art project
July 7th to October 29th, 2023
Photography Sun Shi
Courtesy of the artist, Gladstone Gallery
and aranya plein air art project
Sylvie Fleury
Giant Mushroom
2008
Fiberglass, metallic car paint
260 × 250 × 250 cm
Installation view, aranya plein air art project
July 7th to October 29th, 2023
Photography Sun Shi
Courtesy of the artist, Almine Rech
and aranya plein air art project
Nabuqi
We
2023
3D printing resin, paint
235 × 146 × 75 cm
Commissioned and produced by aranya plein air art project 2023
Installation view, aranya plein air art project
July 7th to October 29th, 2023
Photography Sun ShiCourtesy of aranya plein air art project
Tony Cragg
Accurate Figure
2011
Carrara Marble
206 × 83 × 91 cm
Installation view, aranya plein air art project
July 7th to October 29th, 2023
Photography Sun Shi
Courtesy of aranya plein air art project
Su Chang
Intersect
2023
Plaster, aluminate, hemp and other mixed materials
Dimensions variable
Commissioned and produced by aranya plein air art project 2023
Installation view, aranya plein air art project
July 7th to October 29th, 2023
Photography Sun Shi
Courtesy of aranya plein air art project
Isabelle Cornaro
Untitled (column #2 & column #3)
2014
Steel structure with black resin castings
66 × 274 × 66 cm each
Installation view, aranya plein air art project
July 7th to October 29th, 2023
Photography Sun Shi
Courtesy of aranya plein air art project
Katinka Bock
Parasite Fountain
2019
Bronze, transparent PVC tube, water pump
Fish: 85 cm
Column: 300 × 30 cm
Installation view, aranya plein air art project
July 7th to October 29th, 2023
Photography Sun Shi
Courtesy of aranya plein air art project
Chen Xiaoyi
Invisible Liquid
2023
UV print on aluminum plate
Dimensions variable
Commissioned and produced by aranya plein air art project 2023
Installation view, aranya plein air art project
July 7th to October 29th, 2023
Photography Sun Shi
Courtesy of aranya plein air art project
Michelle Wang Yiyi
Red Berries
2023
Hawthorn berry, aluminum wire
Dimensions variable
Commissioned and produced by aranya plein air art project 2023
Installation view, aranya plein air art project
July 7th to October 29th, 2023
Photography Zaiye Studio
Courtesy of aranya plein air art project
