HUANG BINGJIE, XU HAOYANG, DING HONGDAN, CAI JIAN, AO JING, WENJUE

In 1966, New York hosted what is still considered to be the first major exhibition of Western minimalism, Primary Structures: Younger American and British Sculptors, which included the later famous artists Carl Andre, Dan Flavin, and Donald Judd, among others. Minimalism was born in the ‘60s, a time when artists often emerged as ‘collectives’ of genres and styles.Curated by Qi Chao

But in today’s globalised world, the post-Internet era differentiates individuals. Even as a curator, I can’t classify and summarise the six young post-90s artists in this exhibition. Of course, even if they could, I believe they would refuse to be labeled uniformly. So, whether this exhibition is a tribute to the great and forward-thinking exhibition of 58 years ago or the hope for the future of the six participating artists, I have dared to set the theme of this exhibition as Respective Structures: The Quest of Young Artists.

****Why Respective?

Born in 1993 in Chaozhou, Guangdong Province, artist Cai Jian uses computer drawings without any hand-drawn drafts. To him, car airbrushes replaced paintbrushes. The surface of his works is so clear that they don’t look like they were painted. From a distance, they look like prints, but even if you observe closely, you are still unable to find a definite answer. Regardless, you will always be ‘captured’ by his work at first sight. It is foreseeable that the pace of human pursuit of visual stimulation will never stop, and Cai Jian is wandering freely in it.

Born in 1995 in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, artist Ding HongDan has a ‘pure pedigree’, her 14-year study career covers the CAFA High School, CAFA undergraduate, CAFA graduate, and CAFA Ph.D., as a close disciple of the painter Liu Xiaodong, Ding Hongdan inherits the solid techniques of the academic school, which are based on a highly personalised private perspective to depict the female images around her, compared with the style of ‘private photography’, she seems to be in an exploration of “private painting”.

Born in 1994 in Xiangtan City, Hunan Province, artist Huang Bingjie is not only a painter but also an ‘Internet celebrity’. Five to six years ago, she became an art blogger on social media, posting art content related to paintings, visuals, art criticism, etc., which amassed many readers. Taking some time out every day to input learning through the output content, Huang Bingjie admits that being a blogger provides a lot of knowledge that cannot be learned in the Academy of Fine Arts. After countless studies and learning about predecessors, she continued to find the meaning of painting in her self-evolution.

Born in Beijing in 1993, Ao Jing graduated from Goldsmiths, University of London with a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree from the Royal College of Art. In her early work, she focused on the relationship between behaviour and the body. Nowadays, many viewers are at a loss when viewing her sculptures and installations, and they are unable to define his works in the first place. I asked Ao Jing about her take on what to do if the audience wanted to know what your creation was expressing. ‘I just kept trying to solve my own problems,’ she said. If the works are understandable was never in her consideration.

Born in Beijing in 2001, Wenjue is the youngest artist in this exhibition, but his life experience is extraordinarily rich. After dropping out of an international school at the age of 14, he and his parents traveled around Europe and studied in Paris. His work also wanders through contemporary and classical, two-dimensional and three-dimensional, realistic and fantasy. These elements are all intertwined in the phantom constructed by Wenjue, making the audience linger.

Born in Yantai City, Shandong Province in 1998, Xu Haoyang has been busy preparing for a Ph.D. admission. He has been passionate about comics and movies since he was a child, and in the previous stage of creation, he often incorporated film shots into the picture, and the atmosphere of lust, violence, and suspense jumped on the page. And Xu Haoyang, who quickly found his style, is looking for the focus behind the style.

The six participating artists are very different in age, origin, hobbies, experiences, thoughts, etc., so they can only represent themselves, express themselves, and become themselves. They have their own knowledge structure and growth structure. EACH MODERN and I both believe that each artist is a sample of this era, and each sample reflects a cross-section of the era. And the various cross-sections make up this complex era that cannot be defined. Today, we present a cross-section of 6 artists to a Taiwanese audience. This is their time we are witnessing, which is also our own.

Qi Chao on March 14, 2024