ART CITIES:Beijing-Zhuang Hui

Zhuang Hui, Qilian Range - 07, 2014, Inkjet color print, 80 × 370 cm, Edition of 3 + 1AP, Galleria Continua ArchiveZhuang Hui began his artistic career as an oil painter and subsequently shifted to performance-based art and photography. Zhuang Hui has always been motivated by humanist as well as aesthetic concerns. While his body of work spans a diverse range of media and approaches, almost all engage with real events and places. His work explores the relationships between public and private as well as society and the individual.

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Galleria Continua Archive

Zhuang Hui’s solo exhibition “Qilian Range” that are on presentation at Galleria Continua in Beijing, is the first step in a long-term project engaging ideas of landscape. By spending six years simply observing and experiencing the Qilian landscape, Zhuang is gradually forming a personal connection with a part of his cultural heritage that has perhaps been lying dormant.  “Qilian Range – 03” consists of thousands of photographs taken during all his trips to the region, each photo compressed to just a few pixels wide, is a visual representation of his entire project up to this point. “Qilian Range – 08”, consists of 7 monitors each showing the footage taken from small cameras left in the landscape for days or even weeks, activated only by nearby movement. During the day, the animals that trigger the motion sensors are often invisible, overwhelmed by the weather inflected landscape. But by night the animals seem to take over in the ghostly negative night vision, suggesting the existence of another world. In every of the 30 images of “Qilian Range – 11” the unnatural color of the sky has been selected to bring out the particular texture and color of the landscape photographed, creating a complementary clash between artist and nature. Two videos dominate the second floor. They show Zhuang performing the act of ‘drawing from nature’ or perhaps ‘drawing nature’ itself. He is shown with his back to the camera, one video during winter andthe other during summer. On the top floor of the gallery, Zhuang has added a personal homage to the strange indigenous culture of the region. Temple murals that he visited showed people and mountains of equal dimension, with people straddling mountain ranges as if sitting on a chair, or emerging out of a mountain like getting out of bed. The people of Qilian Mountains have a symbiotic relationship with their landscape to the extent that they have become indistinguishable from it, becoming a part of it. Zhuang has painted these murals using pastels on handmade paper, inserting his own image into their compositions, almost like one of his childhood dreams come to life.

Info: Curator: Colin Siyuan Chinnery, Galleria Continua, Dashanzi Art District 798 #8503, 2 Jiuxianqiao Road, Chaoyang Dst., Beijing, Duration: 18/3-30/4/17, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 11:00-18:00, www.galleriacontinua.com

Zhuang Hui, Qilian Range – 04 (Video still), 2014, Single channel, silent color video, Edition of 5 + 1AP, Galleria Continua Archive
Zhuang Hui, Qilian Range – 04 (Video still), 2014, Single channel, silent color video, Edition of 5 + 1AP, Galleria Continua Archive

 

 

Zhuang Hui, Qilian Range - 01, 2011, Inkjet color print, 100 × 75 cm, Edition of 3 + 1AP, Galleria Continua Archive
Zhuang Hui, Qilian Range – 01, 2011, Inkjet color print, 100 × 75 cm, Edition of 3 + 1AP, Galleria Continua Archive

 

 

Zhuang Hui, Qilian Range – 15 (Video still), 2016, SingleHchannel color and sound video, Edition of 5 + 1AP, Galleria Continua Archive
Zhuang Hui, Qilian Range – 15 (Video still), 2016, SingleHchannel color and sound video, Edition of 5 + 1AP, Galleria Continua Archive

 

 

Zhuang Hui, Qilian Range - 14, 2016, Inkjet color print, 90 × 135 cm, Edition of 3 + 1AP, Galleria Continua Archive
Zhuang Hui, Qilian Range – 14, 2016, Inkjet color print, 90 × 135 cm, Edition of 3 + 1AP, Galleria Continua Archive