Feng Shuo "Tales"

Marlborough Chelsea

poster for Feng Shuo "Tales"

This event has ended.

The Directors of Marlborough Gallery announce the American debut of Feng Shuo, a young Chinese painter who creates a symbolic and oneiric universe where children, puppets, men, women and animals play the parts of the drama of life.

This exhibition will feature oils on canvas. Feng Shuo’s new expression and language are pushing the boundaries of the Chinese contemporay art scene. At first glance, one may feel that Feng’s works are too soft or too graphic, too elementary or even too cute, but upon closer examination this first impression quickly gives way to solemn realizations of grave irony, and sometimes even distress and despair. He is not a slave to novelty or gimmick; he rejects the “culture of reaction” as well as the homogenizing effects of mass technology. One can recognize in him the thought expressed by Roland Barthes: “Suddenly, I became indifferent to not being modern.” The strength of Feng Shuo rests in his absolute sincerity as an artist.

His position is that of the observer, the rebel, and the hermit. The suggestion is not to recluse yourself in a cave, but rather to witness the theater of life, while not getting involved in its dramas; Feng steps to one side in order to put himself in an oblique, free and responsible position as observer. Feng’s universe comes to life and entices us: like a mirror revealing every flaw, or like a tale, telling us a story that perhaps we do not want to hear. Feng Shuo’s subjects and concerns are worthy of Daumier and his “Comédie Humaine.” But his fresh and daring approach also relates to Bada Shanren (Zhu Da) the 17th century Chinese painter whose work reveals a strong sense of dissatisfaction, loneliness, and protest against an illegitimate power. Feng Shuo emulates the unrestrained individualism of Bada by freely exposing his feelings through his paintings. He reaches past the present conformity and redundancy dominating much of contemporary Chinese art and invents his own language in painting which places him squarely in a unique category.

Media

Schedule

from April 17, 2008 to May 17, 2008

Artist(s)

Feng Shuo

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