Sep 9, 2016

Pékin Fine Arts: For Immediate Release

Sunlight Reflects - Aniwar Mamat (b.1962, , ). Sep. 24 – Nov. 12, 2016

Aniwar Mamat, Green, 2015, Tapestry Painting – Lamb’s Wool Felt, 180 x 400 cm

Pékin Fine Arts () is pleased to host Sunlight Reflects (Sept. 24 - Nov.12), the gallery’s 1st solo exhibit in Hong Kong of artist Aniwar Mamat (b.1962 Kashgar, Xinjiang Province, China). Aniwar’s "tapestry paintings" were most recently seen at the OCAT Xian Museum (2016) in FELT: Aniwar Mamat Solo Exhibition; at Pékin Fine Arts gallery’s solo exhibition (2015); in the SWATCH Pavilion (2015) at the 56th Venice Biennale; and, in the international group exhibit Decorum: Carpets and Tapestries By Artists (2014) jointly organized by the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris and the Shanghai Power Station of Art.

Aniwar’s practice also includes painting, drawing, installation, photography and film work. The current exhibit, Sunlight Reflects, presents the artist’s most recent exploration of traditional Uyghur (Xinjiang) felting techniques adapted to his “tapestry painting” designs.

Aniwar’s reinterpretations of Uyghur wool felt tapestries, just completed in cooperation with local Xinjiang craftsman, will premiere in Hong Kong at Pékin Fine Arts, together with Aniwar’s short documentary film. The film records a painstaking rolled-felt production process in a remote Uyghur village, as the artist introduces his fastidious taste for minimalist more geometric abstraction to local craftsmen, by arranging strips of color bands, one-by-one, across the soaked, pressed and rolled sheep’s wool felt. The film captures - without directly addressing - the stark divide between Xinjiang city- dwellers and rural villagers. What is also plainly evident is the uncertain future of traditional handcrafts and skilled craftsmen, (here, paying tribute to the labor intensive skills of Uyghur wool felt rolling and color - dying artisans), against market demand for mass-produced, machine-made goods.

Aniwar, a Uyghur-rooted, Beijing-based abstractionist of long-standing (since the late 1990’s), has built a career on quietly challenging prevailing social-realist norms. His fidelity to abstraction, long pre-dating the art world’s fashionable embrace of the neo- pop, op art abstraction of today, remains at the core of his artistic strategy. In recent years, the artist has experimented with adapting traditional Uyghur felt making to his vision of spatial, color-band and color-grid, abstraction. Whether on felt or on canvas, the artist’s abstract works are consistently minimalist, comprised of bright contrasting color bands, rejecting more popular narrative, folkloric motifs, while retaining the vivid Central Asian colors used in traditional Xinjiang carpet and textile design. Aniwar’s colors – taken from his Uyghur heritage – embrace the brighter hues first imported to China by Uyghur carpet makers over 1000 years ago via the , and differ

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radically from colors preferred by the Han of Eastern China. Even today, the more vivid Central Asian color palette remains far removed from Beijing’s preferred greys, and Imperial reds and yellows.

Today, the artist’s painterly choices are extended to his felt tapestries: Aniwar’s compositions are decidedly the product of his minimalist aesthetic, while his fidelity to a Uyghur color palette remains traditional – evoking the emotion of his homeland. The colors chosen are never arbitrary, instead reflecting a fidelity to his heritage. His felt tapestry-making color choices may also stem from local limitations, reflecting limited access to dyes in these remote and economically challenged Xinjiang villages. The foreground or main body of each felt tapestry for instance is either off white, light or dark brown, remaining un-dyed, and true to the original lamb’s wool colors. Only the bands of color are dyed. On a practical level, the mash-up of contemporary design and traditional Uyghur colors makes the work a bit more familiar to local craftsman, does not radically inflate production costs, and is likely providing a simpler means of gaining their initial cooperation. Despite the modern film shoot, the unchanged workshop of the craftsman seems almost medieval, relying on skills and basic tools little changed over the centuries.

The artist’s experiment conducted in this remote Xinjiang village, marrying contemporary abstraction and age-old wool felt craftsmanship, is admirably idiosyncratic and typical of Aniwar’s singular vision. Aniwar consistently challenges so-called prevailing wisdom, deftly sidestepping artificial boundaries created by market demands. Unmoved by popular trends, Aniwar’s is a personal quest, a lifetime pursuit exploring the language of abstraction and cultural heritage. His unwavering determination to go his own way is Aniwar’s greatest strength – and may one day be among his greatest contributions to the Chinese contemporary art scene.

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Sep. 9，2016

Aniwar MAMAT CV (b. 1962, Kashgar, China)

1962 Born in Kashgar, Xinjiang Province, China. 1980 Graduated from Tianjin Institute of Art and Design, Tianjin, China. 1988 Graduated from Oil Painting Department of the Central Institute of National Minorities, Beijing, China. 1988 – 2007 Professor at the Central School of Arts and Design, Beijing, China. Lives and works in Beijing

Selected Solo Exhibitions and Artist Projects

2016

Sunlight Reflects: Aniwar Mamat Solo Exhibition, Pékin Fine Arts, Hong Kong

FELT: Aniwar Mamat Solo Exhibition, OCAT Xian Museum, Xian, China

2015 Sun, Water, and Wind, Pékin Fine Arts, Beijing, China

2014 Encountering: New Art Along the Silk Road: The 2nd Xinjiang Biennale, Urumqi, Xinjiang Province.

2013 Artist Residency – Swatch Art Peace Hotel, Shanghai, China

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2012 Artist Residency – Baku, Azerbaijan.

2011 Wind Without Rain, Platform China Contemporary Art Institute Space A, Beijing, China

2009 Cristóbal Ortega / Aniwar, Instituto Cervantes, Beijing, China

2001 Look At Me / Touch Me, CourtYard Gallery, Beijing, China.

2000 Aniwar Mamat: New Works, CourtYard Gallery, Beijing, China.

1997 Aniwar -Recent Works, Red Gate Gallery, Beijing, China.

1994 Aniwar at Tom Lamb Studios, Tom Lamb Studios, Laguna Beach, USA.

1993 Aniwar - Recent Paintings, Red Gate Gallery, Beijing, China.

1992 Aniwar Solo Exhibition, Somerstown Gallery, New York, USA.

1985 Aniwar, Art Magazine, Beijing, China.

Group Exhibits

2015 Art From the World: Swatch Faces 2015, Swatch Pavilion, Arsenale, 56th Venice Biennale, Venice,Italy

2014 Decorum: Carpets And Tapestries By Artists, Musee d’Art Moderne de la Ville de

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Paris and Power Station of Art, Shanghai, China

2013 “Why Paint?” Pékin Fine Arts, Beijing, China

2013 Group Exhibition of Artists in Residence, Swatch Art Peace Hotel, Shanghai, China

2011 SH Contemporary 2011, Pékin Fine Arts, Shanghai, China

2010 Art Beijing, Pékin Fine Arts, Beijing, China

2009 Music to My Eyes - The First Exhibition of FAT ART, Today Art Museum, Beijing, China

2008 Accumulation, Pékin Fine Arts, Beijing, China Subtlety, Platform China Contemporary Art Institute Space A, Beijing, China

2007 The DIFC Gulf Art Fair, Pékin Fine Arts, Dubai, UAE.

1998 Media Wave Art Exhibition, Chungarian, China.

1997 New National Chinese Painting Exhibition, National Art Museum of China, Beijing, China Chinese Contemporary Oil Painting Exhibition, Singapore Exhibition of Works Featured in the 1994-1998 BHP Calendars of Contemporary Chinese Art, Red Gate Gallery, Beijing, China

1996 5th Anniversary Exhibition, Red Gate Gallery, Beijing, China.

1995 artCRA, Accra, Ghana Looking East, Irvine Valley College, Irvine, CA, USA

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Aniwar and Song Yonghong Oil Paintings, Ammonal Art Gallery, Beijing, China

1994 China Art Expo, Guangzhou, China.

1993 Spring Oil Painting Exhibition, China Daily Gallery, Beijing, China Group Exhibition, Red Gate Gallery, Beijing, China 2nd Contemporary Art Exhibition of National Minorities, Beijing, China

1991 Chinese Annual Oil Painting Exhibition, China National Art Museum, Beijing, China Group Exhibition, Red Gate Gallery, Beijing, China

1988 Contemporary Art Exhibition of China’s National Minorities, The Central Institute of National Minorities, Beijing, China.

1987 Qun Qing Oil Painting Exhibition, Central Institute of National Minorities, Beijing, China.

1984 New Carpets International Fair, West Germany Untitled, Central Institute of National Minorities, Beijing, China

Collections

Cathay Pacific Airways Corporate Art Collection, Hong Kong National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia Tng Corporation, Montreal, Canada US Department of State, Art in Embassies Collection UBS Bank Art Collection, Zurich, Switzerland

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For further information, please contact [email protected] or call:(852) 2177 6190.

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