glass magazine || reporting BosiBayer

01/06/2012 13:24:04

YUN-FEI JI: WATER WORK
Long Gallery, June 3 – July 15 2012
SONG KUN: A THOUSAND KISSES DEEP
The Nave, 3 June – 15 July 2012
Tuesday – Sunday, 10:00 -19:00
UCCA, 798 Art District, No.4 Jiuxianqiao Lu, Chaoyang District, Beijing, China 100015
www.ucca.org.cn

UCCA
The Ullens Center for Contemporary Art is a not-for-profit art center in Beijing, located at the heart of the 798 Art District.

Song Kun: A Thousand Kisses Deep, 3 June – 15 July 2012
A Thousand Kisses Deep presents new work by one of China’s most prominent young female artists, Song Kun. Hung salon-style across the twin walls of UCCA’s Nave, the exhibition features a new cycle of 28 shimmering paintings, technical studies of drifting light evoking a sinister, sensual beauty and the dual themes of carnality and spirituality. Paired with an immersive video installation, this presentation showcases the latest practice of one of China’s most interesting young painters.

Yun-Fei Ji: Water Work, 3 June – 15 July 2012
This is the first solo exhibition of artist Yun-Fei Ji in Beijing, the city in which he was born. New commissions and key works from the past decade are included as well as several scroll paintings over ten meters long, previously unseen together. In this exhibition Yun-Fei Ji examines historical developments in contemporary America and China focusing on the effects of grand infrastructural projects and water-related natural disasters on ordinary people.

SONG KUN BIOGRAPHY
Song Kun (b. 1977, Baotou, Inner Mongolia) completed her MFA in the oil painting department at the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) in 2006. She was a founding member of the artist group N12 during her studies, and she gained recognition as one of China’s most prominent young female artists at the Second Triennial of Chinese Art (Nanjing Art Museum, 2005). Solo exhibitions include “Seeking the Recluse but not Meeting” at Walter Maciel Gallery (Los Angeles, 2009); “Xi Jia – River Lethe” at Boers-Li Gallery (Beijing, 2008); “Song Kun, Solo Project” at Hammer Museum (Los Angeles, 2007); and “It’s My Life” at Boers-Li Gallery (Beijing, 2006). Selected group exhibitions include a special presentation at The Armory Show (New York, 2010); "Body - Boundary" at Chambers Fine Art (New York, 2006); and The Second Triennial of Chinese Art (Nanjing Art Museum, 2005). In 2008 she was a resident artist at the Lei pzig International Art Program. Song Kun lives and works in Beijing.

YUN-FEI JI BIOGRAPHY
Yun-Fei Ji (b. Beijing, 1963) received his BFA from the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) in 1982, followed by an MFA from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville in 1989. He paints on handmade rice paper with translucent ink or paint based on natural pigments, using ancient techniques including calligraphy. His subjects evoke traditional Chinese landscape painting, as figures and scenes recall tales and epics from Chinese folklore and history. However, his works tell much more contemporary stories. Rather than displaying vistas of villages nestled into traditional mountain landscapes, Ji’s works are about moving out, as his subjects include the people who were displaced during the construction of the Three Gorges Dam, as well as those who lost their homes during Hurricane Katrina. While his work echoes the oeuvre of the ancient Dynasty Masters, whose paintings combined compositional and technical brilliance with expression of sorrow and melancholy, Yun-Fei Ji&rsqu o;s socially focused subjects (the result of on-site observation, documentary-style research, and an interest in satire), are more global, existential portrayals of human tragicomedy.

Yun-fei Ji developed his artistic practice in Brooklyn, New York, where he began exhibiting in 1990, but has been based in Beijing for the past three years. Group exhibitions include participation in the 2002 Whitney Biennale and the 11th Biennale de Lyon (2011), as well as shows at The Museum of Modern Art, New York and the British Museum, London. In 2012, he will participate in the 18th Biennale of Sydney. Selected solo exhibitions include “Boxers” at the SAFN Museum, Iceland (2004); “The Empty City,” which traveled to the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis and the Rose Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA (2004); “Great News Comes From the Collective Farm” at ZenoX, Belgium (2005); “Water That Floats the Boat Can Also Sink It” at the James Cohan Gallery, New York (2006); and the Frieze Art Fair at Zeno X Gallery, London (2010). He received The Rome Prize in 2006 from the American Academy in Rome, Italy. This will be his se cond solo exhibition in China and first in Beijing.