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EXHIBITION GUIDE WINTER/SPRING 2020 1 FOURTH FLOOR THIRD FLOOR SECOND FLOOR FIRST FLOOR GALLERY ENTRANCE OFFICES (GALLERY STAFF ONLY) EXHIBITIONS LEGEND THE ALLURE OF MATTER RESTROOM WATER FOUNTAIN BHUTAN: A PHOTOGRAPHIC ESSAY ELEVATOR COAT/BAG CHECK CATALOG PICK-UP 1 FOURTH FLOOR THIRD FLOOR SECOND FLOOR Liu Jianhua, Black Flame, 2017, Photo: © Museum Associates/LACMA. ON VIEW: FIRST FLOOR GALLERY ENTRANCE OFFICES at Wrightwood 659 (GALLERY STAFF ONLY) February 7–May 2, 2020 and EXHIBITIONS LEGEND at Smart Museum of Art The University of Chicago THE ALLURE OF MATTER RESTROOM 5550 S. Greenwood Avenue | Chicago, IL 60637 WATER FOUNTAIN BHUTAN: February 7–May 3, 2020 A PHOTOGRAPHIC ESSAY ELEVATOR COAT/BAG CHECK CATALOG PICK-UP 2 Everyday Materials, Radically Reinvented. Gu Dexin, Untitled, 1989, Photo: © Museum Associates/LACMA. NATIONAL TOUR Los Angeles County Museum of Art June 2, 2019–January 5, 2020 Smart Museum of Art and Wrightwood 659 February 7–May 3, 2020 Seattle Art Museum June 25–September 13, 2020 Peabody Essex Museum November 14, 2020–February 21, 2021 The national tour of this exhibition is supported by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. The Allure of Matter is co-organized by the Smart Museum of Art with Wrightwood 659 and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Seattle Art Museum, and the Peabody Essex Museum. The exhibition is curated by Wu Hung, Smart Museum Adjunct Curator, Harrie A. Vanderstappen Distinguished Service Professor of Art History, and Director of the Center for the Art of East Asia at the University of Chicago, with Orianna Cacchione, Smart Museum Curator of Global Contemporary Art. This presentation of The Allure of Matter is made possible by support from Alphawood Foundation Chicago. Support for the exhibition and its catalogue has been provided by principal sponsors the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation and by Lorna Ferguson and Terry Clark. Additional support has been provided by the Elizabeth F. Cheney Foundation and the Smart Museum’s SmartPartners. 3 ince the 1980s, artists working in China have THE ALLURE OF MATTER S ARTISTS: experimented with various materials, transforming 艾未未 Ai Weiwei seemingly everyday objects 蔡国强 into large-scale artworks. These Cai Guo-Qiang artists have exploded fireworks 陈箴 Chen Zhen into paintings, felted hair into 顾德新 Gu Dexin gleaming flags, stretched 谷文达 gu wenda pantyhose into monochromatic artworks, deconstructed old 何翔宇 He Xiangyu doors and windows to make 胡晓媛 Hu Xiaoyuan sculptures, and even skillfully 黄永砯 Huang Yong Ping molded porcelain into gleaming black flames. 靳山 Jin Shan 梁绍基 Liang Shaoji Artists continue to explore and 林天苗 Lin Tianmiao develop this creative mode, 刘建华 with some devoting decades of Liu Jianhua their practice to experiments 刘韡 Liu Wei with a single material. For the 马秋莎 Ma Qiusha first time, The Allure of Matter: 彭禹 Material Art from China brings Peng Yu together works in which 施慧 Shi Hui conscious material choice has 宋冬 Song Dong become a means of the artists’ 隋建国 Sui Jianguo expression, representing this trend throughout recent history. 孙原 Sun Yuan and 彭禹 Peng Yu In Chicago, the exhibition is 王晋 Wang Jin divided into two unique halves, 徐冰 Xu Bing taking up the entire gallery footprints of the Smart Museum 尹秀珍 Yin Xiuzhen of Art on the South Side and 展望 Zhan Wang Wrightwood 659 on the North 張洹 Zhang Huan Side. To fully experience the 張羽 exhibition, guests are encouraged Zhang Yu to visit both locations. 朱金石 Zhu Jinshi 4 MATERIAL ART FROM CHINA BY WU HUNG Adapted from the introductory essay to the exhibition catalogue. Zhu Jinshi, Wave of Materials, 2007, Photo © Museum Associates/LACMA. The fruit of a multiyear research and “adopted” by artists, given project, this exhibition coins agency, and become their the concept “Material Art,” private means of making art or caizhi yishu in Chinese,[1] to over a significant period of time. define a crucial component Used in painting, sculpture, of contemporary Chinese installation, and performance, art that has remained largely such material substances unexamined. This type of art transcend codified art forms to entails an artist’s consistent function as “super-agents” in use of unconventional their works. materials to produce works in which material, rather than Material Art emerged in China image or style, is paramount in the 1980s and triumphed in manifesting the artist’s in the 1990s and early 2000s. aesthetic judgement or social At the beginning, young critique. Whether intimate or artists chose unconventional generic, natural or artificial, materials for themselves that special materials are selected simultaneously declared their 5 self-identity as alternative contemporary art. These artists artists in the domestic context have thus made an important and as members of global contribution in opening up contemporary art in the a space that overlaps and international sphere. Derived reconfigures local and global from the physical world, these contemporary art. Conversely, materials also allowed them the desire to expand this space to bypass the East-West has sustained these artists’ dichotomy to make works that continuous engagement with were both culture-specific special materials that speak and globally relevant. It is to audiences in both local and no coincidence that several global arenas. pioneers of Material Art, such as Huang Yong Ping (1954-2019), The Allure of Matter Cai Guo-Qiang (born 1957), presents the world’s first and gu wenda (born 1955), also systematic introduction to the belonged to the first group of phenomenon. The works by contemporary Chinese artists to the twenty-six artists in the gain international recognition in exhibition encapsulate the entire the 1980s and 1990s. course of this artistic trend, from its emergence in the late 1980s During the past thirty years, and early 1990s to its current Material Art has produced manifestations. Many artists several generations of artists in the exhibition are familiar whose works have appeared in to observers of contemporary major international exhibitions Chinese art. Some of them, and impressed audiences such as Ai Weiwei (born 1957), with their visual ingenuity and Xu Bing (born 1955), Huang semantic complexity. Gradually, Yong Ping, and Cai Guo-Qiang, the distinct languages and are among the best-known aesthetics of this art have contemporary artists in the become shared properties of world. Although their use of contemporary Chinese artists unconventional materials has not and have continued to influence gone unnoticed, their “material younger generations. Rejecting works” have been treated as hard-and-fast categorization, isolated cases occasioned by artists making Material Art their individual creativity, and represent a thoroughly have been vaguely—and often cosmopolitan approach within inaccurately—labeled as contemporary Chinese art Conceptual Art, assemblage, and a culturally informed readymades, or object-based regional approach within global art. 6 In examining these artists phenomenon. The fundamental and their works through the tactic of Material Art, that each lens of Material Art, this artist claims ownership of one exhibition and the related or more special materials as catalogue aim to achieve three his or her own, emphasizes Ai Weiwei, Tables at Right Angles, 1998, Stockamp Tsai Collection, New York. interrelated goals. The first personal choices and makes is to establish the historical this art a conglomerate of position of Material Art by highly individualized projects. reconstructing its origin, A study of Material Art thus development, and context, cannot stop at the level of and exploring its stimuli and a macro narrative but must essential characteristics. This uncover the particular contexts investigation brings a vital and inspirations of specific but previously ignored aspect projects as well as their of contemporary Chinese art interrelationships. into scholarly focus, adding an important dimension The third goal is to connect to existing narratives of Material Art from China with contemporary Chinese art. the scholarship on materiality The second goal is to analyze in contemporary art that has individual artists and their emerged mainly since 2000. works within this wide-ranging This vibrant scholarship takes and multifaceted artistic the material as both focus 7 and frame of historical and theoretical inquiries, and VISIT THE analyzes particular material categories and/or theorizes ALLURE OF materiality in art. Simply put, MATTER in the words of art historian Petra Lange-Berndt, the WEBSITE general methodology of this type of research is “to follow the material and to theallureofmatter.org act with the material.”[2] The current exhibition and catalogue adopt this basic The companion website methodology, but at the same features exclusive time embrace a contextual, art-historical approach through content, including reconstructing the development original video interviews, of Material Art within a clearly photos revealing each delineated historical framework. The hope is to enrich the artist’s working process, existing scholarship on and a complete calendar materiality by discovering and interpreting an important non- of related programs. Western artistic phenomenon. Wu Hung is the Harrie A. Vanderstappen Distinguished Service Professor of Art History and the College, Director of the Center for the Art of East Asia, Adjunct Curator at the Smart Museum of Art, and Special Advisor to the Provost for the Arts in Asia at the University of Chicago. As a scholar, he has