The art of Gao Ludi goes hand in glove with his reflections on the condition of our times. By rethinking the culture of "the image" (tuxiang) in a contemporary context, he links the practice of painting to an exceptional kind of physical activity of which the principal function is to deal with "residual stuff". This is the main channel for the transmission of images. To a large extent, social media influence the most basic ways in which images are generated. The daily, disciplined sharing of individual information by the masses has incrementally added physical meaning to the image, allowing it to depart from the mere domain of aesthetics and spread out into the physical domain. Keywords here are "daily", "high frequency" and "disciplined". The artist departs from readily available, unprocessed original images, subjecting their everyday aesthetic to tongue-in-cheek analysis and misappropriation. Hence, the artist's works don't just operate within the complex history of painting and photography in the modern and contemporary age: their physicality also envelops them with a kind of fluorescent halo.
Read MoreGao Ludi (b. 1990, Zhengzhou, Henan Province, China) received his BFA in Oil Painting at the Institute for Fine Arts at Capital Normal University (Beijing) in 2013. Recent solo exhibitions include Journal, WHITE SPACE BEIJING, Beijing, China (2021); 1:1, Qiao Space, Shanghai, China (2020); Juicy, WHITE SPACE BEIJING, Beijing, China (2018); Album, Ibid Gallery, Los Angeles, USA (2018); Gao Ludi: Painting Blind, or, a History of Abyssal Movements, Wyoming Project, Beijing, China (2017); Gao Ludi, WHITE SPACE BEIJING, Beijing, China (2016). Recent group exhibitions include: 2020 – Song Art Invitation Exhibition, Song Art Museum, Beijing, China (2020); A White Space Odyssey, WHITE SPACE BEIJING, Beijing, China (2019); A World in a Grain of Sand: Mapping Shapes and Sites for Social Deometries, Atlantis Sanya, Sanya, China (2018); Our Painting, Yang Art Museum, Beijing, China (2016). He was featured on the list of "30 Under 30 Asia 2019" by Forbes. Gao Ludi currently lives and works in Beijing, China.
Text courtesy White Space.
