UCCA Exhibition | "Xu Bing: Thought and Method”

Описание: From July 21 to October 21, 2018, UCCA presented “Xu Bing: Thought and Method,” running in the Great Hall, Central Gallery, Nave and Lobby. This exhibition marks Xu Bing’s most comprehensive retrospective in Beijing; it is a summation of an artistic career that spans more than four decades, including more than sixty works, comprising prints, drawings, installation art, and films, as well as documentary footage and archival material. It was also the first exhibition that UCCA mounts after the complete restoration of the Great Hall to its original 1800-square-meter dimensions. The name, “Thought and Method,” expresses UCCA’s desire to provide a systematic overview of Xu’s corpus, his methodology, and the motivation behind his artistic inquiry. To this end, the works under consideration here had been divided into three sections, indicative of major turning points in the artist’s thinking.

One of the most influential artists on the international stage, Xu Bing has made a profound impact on the history of Chinese contemporary art with his prolific output, wide-ranging vision, and ever-evolving practice. Possessed with a keen sensitivity to the hesitations and ironies within different historical periods, Xu produces artworks that are bound closely to their social and cultural contexts, inspiring viewers to pause and reflect on their surroundings. As he says, “Wherever there are people, there are questions. And wherever there are questions, there is art.” Xu’s vision is multiple and myriad: from the early explorations of culture, language, and traditional knowledge systems, to the investigations into cross-cultural contact and globalization in the nineties, to the recent meditations on technology and modernity in the 21st century. His search for novel methods of articulating new problems, his experimentation with a great number of media, both traditional and new, his conceptual rigor, and his unmistakable creative syntax have all served to make his name a metonym for Chinese contemporary art itself.

Xu has proven a vigilant and farsighted observer of the era. His layered, interdisciplinary approach is evident in his artworks’ multifaceted depth, and his renovation of old artistic language and creation of novel visual rhetoric, offering viewers numerous points from which to explore.

For more information on the exhibition, please visit https://ucca.org.cn/en/exhibition/xu-...

UCCA尤伦斯当代艺术中心于2018年7月21日至10月21日在大展厅、中展厅、甬道和大堂呈现个展“徐冰：思想与方法”。本展览是徐冰在北京地区最全面的回顾性个展，力图全面梳理艺术家自上世纪七十年代开始，至今四十余年的创作历程，囊括以版画、素描、装置、文献记录、手稿、影像、纪录片等为形式的六十余件作品。此次展览为UCCA大展厅改建后的首个大展，展厅中呈现徐冰所有主要系列的作品，以勾勒出其艺术探索的完整轨迹。此次展览标题“思想与方法”也正源于在回溯式呈现徐冰艺术创作全貌的基础上，通过作品来展现徐冰的艺术方法和他保持不断思考的动因所在的展览理念。

作为在国际舞台最具影响力的艺术家之一，徐冰以其持续不断、数量蔚为可观、类型涵盖宽广的艺术实践深入影响了中国当代艺术的历史书写。徐冰始终对自身所处的时代保持高度敏感，其作品与当下社会文化现实联系紧密且发人深省，正如他所言，“你生活在哪，就面对哪的问题，有问题就有艺术。”徐冰的艺术创作在多条不同线索上交叉进行，从早期研究的文化、语言及传统知识体系，到上个世纪九十年代至纽约后开始关注的跨文化与全球化议题，再到本世纪对于不断飞速发展的社会新现象的探讨，他始终专注于寻找新的艺术方法以回应新问题；其创作概念严谨，媒介多样，艺术表达清晰明确，在世界当代艺术中具有很高的辨识度，也在不同层面上影响着中国当代艺术整体面貌的构成，某种意义上为我们提供了一幅中国当代艺术发展的缩略图。

徐冰以其独具机锋的艺术语言赋予作品高度社会化的精神内核，以精微而幽默的方式呈现艺术家对当下时代的批判性反思。艺术家秉承了东方文化朴素与睿智的精髓，却直面更广阔意义上的世界，其作品极具前瞻性与警惕性；同时，在其作品看似声东击西与错位的面貌之下，多层次的社会议题与文化思考在其中发声与相互激荡，通过对旧有艺术语言的改造与新语言的创造，艺术家为观众提供了多种进入与探索的通道。

“徐冰：思想与方法”由田霏宇和独立策展人冯博一联合策划，由UCCA展览部卞卡与郭希协助呈现，孙华、赵一峰、冯予三人设计团队担任空间设计师，依据UCCA的展厅构造与策展理念进行规划。

劳力士荣誉支持“劳力士创艺推荐资助计划”顾问徐冰先生展览“徐冰：思想与方法”。明基BenQ提供展览影像解决方案，Genelec（真力）提供展览独家音响设备支持，华为担任展览战略合作伙伴。合美术馆为展览协办机构。感谢曹晓静对本次展览部分教育项目的支持。

关于展览的更多信息，请前往 https://ucca.org.cn/exhibition/xu-bing/