A Piece Of Sea

2023.11.22-2024.02.24

Introduction

In reality, a piece of sea either exists or doesn't exist. Xiaohu Zhou attempts to carve out a measurable sea from the undividable liquid expanse, presenting his "Spatial Montage." As a significant important pioneer in Chinese contemporary art, he has been using computers for artistic creation since the late 1990s, crossing freely across various mediums, experimenting with clay animation, video installations, sculpture, painting, and performance art. He is fascinated by how history and specific details in the digital age are recorded, magnified, misinterpreted, altered, and omitted. Zhou often employs surreal and absurd narrative techniques to mimic or satirize reality. His video work with Zhejiang Taishun Puppet Theatre Company, Earthly Paradise, presents a reflection on the power relations in the "chain of manipulation" and the contradictions of mutual devouring, and is being shown at the 14th Shanghai Biennale under the title Cosmos Cinema.

Like many Chinese artists born in the 1960s, Xiaohu Zhou experienced the intense impact of the wave of post-reform and opening up. The stark contrast between the prosperity and decline of ideology and economy left a deep impression on him, making themes of conflict, contradiction, and paradox central to his works. Zhou's creativity is influenced by extensive literary and philosophical readings, with an attraction to abstract concepts that prompt reflections on time, space, and the origin of the universe. Surprisingly, he does not confine himself to strict rational reasoning in his creations. Instead, he relies on a more transparent awareness, finding expression starting points in the absurdities of everyday life or fictional literary texts. He is aware that reading texts and abstract thinking may bring the danger of obscurity to his creations, but he is always able to find the reefs to support his thinking from the vast sea of compartmentalized concepts, and cunningly creates new interpretative possibilities through multiple misreadings and reconstructions, resonating with the original intention of expression, and returning to the level of the body and perception. The current exhibition's works originated from his curiosity about the mystical "overflowing sensation" in Jorge Luis Borges' novel "The Garden of Forking Paths." This curiosity led to the creation of the animation "Wandering Garden" and the VR game "Cat Domain," exploring continuous uncertainty, parallel time, and the sensation of multiple choices. The exhibited labyrinthine carpet is inspired by his contemplation of the relationship between time and imagination in the viewpoint that the universe is a series of thought processes. Due to his extensive use of digital tools in his artwork, Xiaohu Zhou keenly perceives the dreamlike, absurd imaginings, and unreal color worlds in the virtual realm, coinciding with a certain existence in the equally illusory subconscious of the mind. Delving into the speculation of the computer term "stack," he discovered issues of manipulable spatial power and boundary games in the vertical hierarchical structure of layering images (or data). His ability to penetrate conceptual obstacles and consistently return to the human question, coupled with a deep yet vivid visual style, gives his works a distinctive and recognizable quality.

In addition to virtual media like digital art, Xiaohu Zhou is adept at manipulating various tangible materials. This skill, possibly linked to his early training in sculpture and spatial design, allows him to seamlessly switch between two and three-dimensional materials, including metal, ceramics, 3D printing, and what he calls "pan-readymades." Examples from the current exhibition, such as "Cave Forum" and "Mystery & Singer," showcase his mastery of material transitions. Through the evolution of materials in his works, one can trace the artist's shift from a youthful focus on societal phenomena to a deeper reflection on underlying cultural structures. Navigating between modernity and anti-modernity, nature, tradition, games, and illusions, each space he creates or molds becomes a stage and theater. This space can be likened to a seemingly indivisible sea.

Xiaoyang Chen

artist

Zhou Xiaohu

Zhou Xiaohu (b. 1960, Changzhou) is a pioneer of video animation in China . Zhou began using computers as an artistic tool in 1998. As one of China’s most well-known most prolific contemporary artists, he specializes in inducing confusion and bafflement, making viewers question the evidence of their senses and their assumptions about the so-called ‘facts’. He has since experimented with stop-frame video animation, video installation and computer-gaming software, whereby the interlayering of images between moving pictures and real objects has become his signature style. Working across performance, photography, installation, sculpture, video, and animation, Zhou’s practice reflects the documentation and misunderstanding of history in a digital age.

The artist ZHOU Xiaohu has attended group exhibitions including the Shanghai Biennale (2000); China Rushes, Hamburger Bahnhof National Museum, Berlin, Germany (2001); Between past and Future, International Center of Photogrphy, New York, USA (2004); the Utopia Machine, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the First Seville Biennial in Spain (2004); Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Brisbane, Australia (2006); Tate Liverpool, Liverpool, UK, Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, Austria, and Kunst museum Bern, Bern, Switzerland (2007); the 8th Gwangju Biennial (2010); Not Soul For Sale, Tate modern turbin hall, Londong, UK (2010); Barbican Art Gallery, London,UK, and the National Art Museum of China (2011); The fourth Guangzhou Triennial-Grangdview project, Guangzhou, China (2012); Panorama: Recent Art from Contemporary Asia, Singapore Art Museum, Singapore (2012); White Rabbit Gallery, Sydney, Australia (2013); Harmonious Society, Asia Triennial, Manchester, UK (2014).Zhou Xiaohu Solo Exhibition，MOMENTUM,Germany (2015); Chimera，Zhou Xiaohu Solo Exhibition, Shanghai Minsheng Art Museum, China (2016). The 2nd Bangkok Art Biennale(2020). The 14th Shanghai Biennale(2023).

In addition, ZHOU Xiaohu’s animation works have been exhibited at the 40th International Film Festival Rotterdam in Netherland, and the 56th Festival International Film locarno-Video Installation Show in Switzerland. He won the Experimental Video Gold Award in the 36th World Fest-Houston International Film Festival; the CCAA Award (2002, 2006); and Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst Awards (DAAD-2014).

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Chen Xiaoyang

Curator

Ph.D. in anthropology, currently serving as the Deputy Director of the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts Museum and a professor at the School of Sculpture and Public Art. Her primary research interests include visual anthropology, South China studies, and participatory art practices. As an interdisciplinary artist and researcher, Xiaoyang Chen's research projects and works often delve into obscured community histories and realities. Collaborating with volunteer organizations, educational institutions, museums, and NGOs, she continuously conducts research, writes, and engages in on-site exhibitions to explore and disseminate knowledge about the South China region while contributing to cultural reformation.

Her current focus lies in cultural history, visual anthropology, and cross-cultural observations, exploring new approaches to museum practices and curatorial research. Her notable work, "Reconstructing Ancestral Images: An Investigation into South China Clan Ethnography," is based on fluid field research and ethnographic writing. This project extends its focus beyond to the cultural exchange of the peninsula and island regions, linking it to contemporary art research.