Installation Image of "Zhao Zhao: Green"Song Art Museum
This exhibition brings together Zhao’s works from 2016 to 2019, which is the highlight of his artistic career. It presents Zhao’s thorough understanding of time, history and human relations from various aspects, which would be a meaningful and well-arranged story of art.
This story comprises three chapters, composed of different perspectives and space-time. They come across for a moment, gazing at each other, and become a unique clue and sight.
Chapter One
In the first chapter, self-consciousness and perception of life in Zhao’s creation are exposed. Paintings become the key to probe into his self-metaphor. Different themes and objects are like mirrors, reflecting various states of being. Self-portraits are the origin of countless egos and moments.
Installation image of “Zhao Zhao: Green” by Zhao ZhaoSong Art Museum
Several sets of father and child, peaches, bamboo shoots, villains and the god of longevity imply many encounters along with his life; girls, singers, sensitive persons, desensitized persons and insensitive persons lead us to a mercurial virtual reality.
Installation Image of "Zhao Zhao: Green" by Zhao ZhaoSong Art Museum
These paintings represent a galaxy to the audience, in which consciousness and perception are flowing and intertwining. In this chapter, a versatile individual turns his back to the eternality at a glance. He goes beyond distance, unsophisticated and romantic from time to time.
Chapter Two
The second chapter displays Zhao’s complicated connections with history and society. There are two plates at the beginning, one in simplified Chinese while the other in traditional Chinese, representing two identities and two different consequences in history.
Suits (2016) by Zhao ZhaoSong Art Museum
Two suits draw grand historical narratives back to a specific family. Along with a letter, they witnessed the tension and gap between the values of two generations.
Chinese Ladders (2019) by Zhao ZhaoSong Art Museum
On one side, Chineses Ladders, together with several specimens of antiquities in the showcase, reminds of the continuity of traditional Chinese historical views at present. If we view particulars through the general, we will find that everything follows the necessity of history.
Specimens (2019) by Zhao ZhaoSong Art Museum
One Second (2016) by Zhao ZhaoSong Art Museum
On the other side, One Second suspends the historical routine.
One Second (2019) by Zhao ZhaoSong Art Museum
Significance is shown through commonplace. Things change by chance and remain incomparable. Hence we will find that everything can be a series of random events in history as well.
Control (2019) by Zhao ZhaoSong Art Museum
At the end of this chapter, Control is another allegory.
Control (2019) by Zhao ZhaoSong Art Museum
Between the macrocosm and the microcosm in history, as well as the original and the controlled, the individual travels in history and society back and forth. When one struggles along in society, he will finally get the answer in the echo of the past.
Chapter Three
The third chapter presents Zhao’s philosophy of the universe, which he pours out into everything on earth.
Jade Constellations (2018) by Zhao ZhaoSong Art Museum
The journey starts from some ceremonial jade discs, which have a span of over 7000 years.
Constellations (2019) by Zhao ZhaoSong Art Museum
Along the route, temporality becomes the main topic, when bullet holes are left in the constellations, and gradually disappear on smooth silk later.
Project of In Extremis (2018) by Zhao ZhaoSong Art Museum
On the blacktop road, “trivial” creatures are turned into flashes in extremis, or barriers in words, changing our cognition from time to time.
Project of In Extremis (2018) by Zhao ZhaoSong Art Museum
Pig Dragon Tied to Tree Trunks (2019) by Zhao ZhaoSong Art Museum
From Zhao’s perspective, even thousands of years can be ephemeral. Everything on earth has cracks inside. Each experience could enlighten another, while each story could survive another living being because of an uncommon occurrence.
Installation Image of "Zhao Zhao: Green" (2019)Song Art Museum
Therefore, Green is also a symbol. At the end of the year, when winter passes and spring comes, may everything be naturally evergreen like vigorous pine trees.
Click here for a VR exhibition.
ARTIST: ZHAO Zhao
CURATOR: CUI Cancan
EXHIBITION SUPERVISOR: WANG Duan
This exhibition is organized by Song Art Museum and Huayi Brothers Art Co., Ltd., with special thanks to Tang Contemporary art and Qiong Jiu Tang.Installation images courtesy of DAI Ruoying.
