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Constellations II

Zhao Zhao

NEW YORK

May 15 – August 27, 2015

Zhao Zhao: Constellations IIInstallation view
Zhao Zhao: Constellations IIInstallation view
Zhao Zhao: Constellations IIInstallation view
Fragments 碎片, 2013
Constellations No. 8 星空 No.8, 2014
Constellations No. 14 星空 No.14, 2015

Chambers Fine Art is pleased to announce the opening on May 15, 2015 of Zhao Zhao: Constellations II. For his third exhibition at the gallery Zhao Zhao presents a new series of oil paintings that develop ideas first explored in Constellations exhibited at Art Basel/Hong Kong and New York in 2013.

Seven years ago Zhao Zhao was involved in a serious motor accident in which his head hit the windshield of the car in which he was traveling. Saving the windshield, he used the pattern of cracks caused by the violent impact of his head on the shatterproof glass as inspiration for Fragments (2007), a slab of steel measuring 26 x 27 x 5 cm assembled from numerous irregular fragments radiating from the center. Small and unassuming in appearance, this object may be seen as the first announcement of Zhao Zhao’s ongoing investigation of the effects of violent intervention on pre-existing forms, whether caused by the impact of a head (his own) on a sheet of glass or by the political forces that may be presumed to have led to the decision to push the monumental Officer (2011) off his pedestal, resulting in an imposing array of scattered fragmentary forms.

The fascination with powerful forces and violent impacts announced in 2007 with Fragments resurfaced in 2013 when he decided to conduct an experiment involving gunshots and glass, a difficult undertaking in China where with very few exceptions private ownership of guns is illegal. Initially, it seems, he was primarily interested in the technical challenges presented by this activity but the scattered bullet holes and radiating cracks were reminiscent of celestial bodies, leading to the generic title Constellations.

Placed on top of each other, the 30 panels were photographed for the cover of the first Zhao Zhao: Constellations catalog, the explosive energy radiating from each bullet hole becoming vastly magnified in the process. Zhao Zhao’s prowess at the shooting range resulted in an image of unimaginable power, suggestive of events that occurred at the beginning of the universe. Furthermore, different configurations could be achieved by changing the sequence in which the panels were stacked. This simple procedure is the origin of the Constellation paintings, the series of works in which Zhao Zhao successfully melds his passion for painting and his inclination to reject it in conceptually oriented objects and activities.

Limiting his palette to Prussian blue and white and using brushes that range in scale from the largest available to the smallest consisting only of two or three wolf hairs, Zhao Zhao creates startlingly beautiful canvases that owe their mysterious allure to the paradoxical nature of the entire undertaking. In contrast to the glass panels in which the holes and cracks are the residue of a series of one-off events at the shooting range, the paintings are painstaking reconstructions of what occurred when bullet penetrated glass. From many thousands of delicate brushstrokes there emerge constellations of pulsating forms that startle with their energy. Cracks double as lines of energy, uniting the scattered forms that emerge from backgrounds of deepest Prussian blue. Other associations are equally apposite. There is a parallel, perhaps, with the movements of primitive lifeforms in the depths of the ocean or a colony of spiders spinning networks of webs of incredible complexity and strength.

Most surprising in the paintings is the delicacy of touch with which Zhao Zhao reconstitutes the visual evidence of the after-effects of glass shattering. Prior to this series of paintings he was more inclined to use a deceptively simple realistic language to clothe his subversive musings. Now as he contemplates the meaning of a significant moment in his life and invests it with a wide range of metaphorical associations, he paints canvases of considerable scale by using a technique appropriate for a miniaturist. As always with Zhao Zhao, the irony of the situation cannot be escaped!

赵赵在前波的第三次展览,展出了一系列新的油画作品。

这些作品的灵感来源于前波在2013年香港巴塞尔和纽约展 出的《星空》系列。

七年前,赵赵经历了一场车祸,头撞碎了车的挡风玻璃。 为了保存这段记忆,他以当时头猛烈撞击防碎玻璃而造成 的裂纹图案为灵感,创作了作品《碎片》(2007)。这件 5 x 26 x 27 厘米的作品由多块不规则高抛光不锈钢碎片从中 心发散组成。它尺寸小,也并不起眼,却可以说为赵赵探 索由暴力对现有形态所造成的影响拉开了序幕。他的研究 的对象不仅包括自己的头撞到玻璃而留下的痕迹,也包括 被假定从底座上推倒坍塌而下的大型雕塑《伟像》。而这 些作品最终组成了一系列令人印象深刻的碎片。

展览《星空》的画册封面是将这30件玻璃作品的照片叠加 而成的,通过变换玻璃板层叠的顺序组合勾勒出不同的图 像效果,这个简单的步骤可以说是油画作品《星空》的起 源。赵赵本身对油画充满了热情,但在观念作品中他却倾 向于使用其它媒介,《星空》系列里他成功地融合了这两 点。

玻璃板上的弹孔及裂纹是经过一次射击后所残留的痕迹,
与此相反,这组油画作品则是艺术家孜孜不倦地重现了子
弹穿透玻璃的那一瞬间。成千上万的细腻笔触使黑暗的夜
空中浮现出一颗颗闪烁的星星,赋予了它们无限的能量。
裂纹又可以被看作为能量线,将幽深的普蓝色背景中的一
个个零散形态联在了一起。当然也有其他贴切的比喻,譬
如深海中的原始生命形态,或者是一群蜘蛛织出了一张张
错综复杂又结实的网。背景中隐约浮现出梵高的《星夜》
又依稀可见他的向日葵,虽然失去了原有的鲜艳色彩,但
却保留了向阳花朵的活力。
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