Galerie Urs Meile will focus at Art Basel 2018 on a selection of new works by emerging and established contemporary artists. The presentation will include works by Mirko Baselgia, Cao Yu, Chen Fei, Cheng Ran, Michel Comte, Hu Qingyan, Ju Ting, Li Gang, Meng Huang, Qiu Shihua, Shao Fan, Anatoly Shuravlev, Rebekka Steiger, Julia Steiner, Not Vital, Aldo Walker, Wang Xingwei, Xie Nanxing, Yang Mushi and Zhang Xuerui.
Mirko Baselgia (b. 1982 in Lenz, Switzerland) is a young emerging artist from Switzerland and Galerie Urs Meile is pleased to represent him since last year. His works have been shown in group shows and commercial galleries in recent years, which strike one as remarkably mature with formally precious, meticulous in their material realizations and well theorized. In 2017 he was invited by the gallery to be artist-in-residence in Beijing, where new works were created. Conducting intensive amount of researches and studies, Mirko realizes his works via many different points of departures without limiting himself to any single medium. Time plays essential role in his creations. And there are transformational processes involved with regard to the materials. The use of clear sculptural constructs or formations might lead to procession aspect to the viewers and their participations. The involving of biologic interfaces offers opportunities to achieve unforeseeable processes, which meanwhile appeals thinking of everything that affects our lives and becomes subjects. During the Art Basel his solo exhibition Pardis (Curzoin) at the Abbatiale de Bellelay will be on display.
Shao Fan (b. 1964 in Beijing, China): in his works, artist and subject permeate each other producing new imagery challenging the audience's ordinary viewing experience. Through the large size and frontal perspective of the paintings, the viewer confronts the intimidating gaze of Shao Fan's animals on eye level—an awareness of the other arises, as does a new awareness of the self. The artist himself puts it: 'Confrontation is an attitude, and while a frontal perspective could be understood as a limitation of an artist's painterly expression, I prefer to use this limitation to provide new possibilities.' Today, Shao Fan struggles less with what to express, but instead focuses his efforts on how to express, even when it comes to the same position. Explorations and breakthroughs in technique have brought him unwittingly into another creative state—one marked by more freedom and flavor that presents unexpected imagery scenes. Under the title YOU, the Ludwig Museum Koblenz will host Shao Fan's first major solo appearance in a western art institution (June 10 - July 22, 2018). The exhibition will showcase almost 30 years of the artist's creative work including over 40 artworks. The exhibition will then travel to the Suzhou Museum in China.
Hu Qingyan (b. 1982 in Weifang, China) is showing The Guardian Angel (2018, camphorwood, marble, 165 x 95 x 80 cm) at Art Basel 2018. The piece is part of a new series of sculptures where the artist is combining found—but already once processes materials as wood and marble. Hu Qingyan's approach to sculpture has become more and more conceptual since his graduation in 2010 from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. His teachers were focused on the search for the perfect form, but Hu Qingyan has long moved beyond that. His ideas on representation and space are based on an expandeddefinition of the medium of sculpture, and he challenges his viewers with his autonomous concepts.
Qiu Shihua (b. 1940 in Zizhong, China) has been painting pictures that border on the visible since the 1980s. His motifs are landscapes, but they only serve as access points. Looking at the picture leisurely, the motifs seem to emerge as if out of a fog, yet vanish again as soon as one's gaze becomes active. This pulse follows the very own inner rhythms of turning toward the world and can become a daoist practice of one of the central principles of wuwei, or action without active interference.
Rebekka Steiger (b. 1993 in Zürich, Switzerland) is Galerie Urs Meile's current artist-in-residence in Beijing. Steiger, a painter, expresses herself freely and in a virtuoso manner. She gets inspiration by browsing through old books and photographs. Her abundant visual knowledge is then put into practice in a subtle and playful manner. While putting layer upon layer of colour, Steiger's paintings become abstract and culminate in works of great ambivalence and enormous intensity. Her works appeal to us for their intensive colourfulness deriving from the young artist's strong interest in emotionality and the atmospheric.
Wang Xingwei (b. 1969 in Shenyang, China) is prone to depicting scenes that are ambiguous, irrelevant, absurd, vulgar, scandalous, and laughable. His artistic media is painting. His plots are often unexpected and far-fetched, yet charmingly surreal. Since Wang Xingwei's main focus is on form, he seeks the maximum aesthetic possibilities by painting similar motifs again and again. Consequently, some elements can be re-found in different paitings from different creative periods.