Gaodan, Huangpine, Leaf Banyan, Wancheng. Recently, Belgian-born artist Francis Ellis won the 2023 Wolfgang Hahn Award. As summer passes, exhibitions are frequent in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and other places in China.

Gaodan Huangsong Yefang Wancheng

Recently, artist Francis Ellis, born in Belgian , won the 2023 Wolfgang Hahn Award. The award was presented by the Ludwigsy Museum in Cologne, Germany. Ellis has been focusing on the plight of war, borders and refugees, putting himself and others in an environment that reveals bigger problems through his work, and taking walking as the core of his practice.

As summer passes, exhibitions are frequent in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen. In Shanghai, artists Yu Qiping, Ji Ping, Hu Yinping and Alice Chen each showed their new works; in Beijing, painter You Yong showed off the many people in his paintings; in Shenzhen, Italian painter Robert Bosciio held his first solo exhibition in China. These artists express the "portraits" in different situations. "The Paper·Art Review" (www.thepaper.cn) "Art Characters of the Week" reports and analyzes domestic and foreign art topics and hot events.

Belgium｜Artist Francis Ellis

won the Wolfgang Hahn Prize

Francis Ellis 2016

According to the ARTFORUM Chinese website, Francis Alÿs, a Belgian-born interdisciplinary artist Francis Alÿs was nominated for the 2023 Wolfgang Hahn Prize winner. The prize of this award is 100,000 euros, and is one of the largest awards in the art world. The Wolfgang Hahn Award is presented by the Ludwigsey Museum in Cologne, Germany, and the award ceremony will be held in November 2023.

Francis Ellis, born in Antwerp, Belgium in 1959, is often considered an Mexican artist. In fact, Ellis moved to Mexico City in 1986 and has lived and worked in Mexico City to this day. Many of his artistic creations took place on the streets of Mexico: he once stood between the carpenter and plumber in Mexico City, with a sign with the words "tourist" on his feet, and once pushed a large piece of ice through the city blocks he knew until the ice cube melted. Ellis uses his body to understand strange cultures and understand his own externalities. He is both an observer and a participant.

Ellis' artistic practice covers installations, paintings, sketches and social actions, and his works will be purchased by the Ludwig Museum, the sponsor of the award. In addition, Ellis's works exhibition will be held at the museum in the fall of 2023.

Ellis said, "I am very honored to win such an award in this polarized era. It means great and exciting to me. It makes me feel that my own focus overlaps with the public's focus, and it is possible to start a conversation." Previous winners include Frank Bowling, Haegue Yang, Trisha Donnelly, etc.

Since the 1990s, Ellis has been focusing on the plight of war, borders and refugees, often placing himself and others in an environment that reveals greater problems through his works and regards walking as the core of his practice. Ellis is currently representing Belgium to participate in the 59th Venice Biennale . In 2018, Ellis's solo exhibition "Consumption" was held at Shanghai Bund Art Museum . The exhibition unfolds from Ellis' famous work "Tornado" to explore "unproductive labor". (Compiled/Wancheng)

Italy | Painter Robert Boscio

China's first solo exhibition: Magical Stillness

Robert Boscio

On September 4, Italian artist Robert Bosisio's first solo exhibition in China "Magic Stillness" is on display in Shenzhen. In case the space is exhibited outside the space, this exhibition presents the artist's most representative series of works, and will focus on the silent and quiet feeling of the work itself beyond the real time and space.

Bocicio was born in Trodna, northern Italy in 1963. He graduated from Home of Applied Arts in Vienna and studied under Professor Adolf Frohner, a representative figure of activism in Vienna. Bosciio is accustomed to wandering around the world to create and live. He explores the boundaries of painting from an independent and earnest perspective and defends the legitimacy of painting in a serious way.In 2011, Bosciio participated in the 54th Venice Biennale in Italy through the promotion of the famous Oscar film director and collector Wim Wenders (Wim Wenders).

Robert Bosicio's works

Robert Bosicio has always paid attention to the creation of certain fixed themes: characters, still lifes, scenery and even interior spaces. They do not show a concrete space and life, but an illusory individual between abstraction and concreteness. In the 2020 British Portrait Competition, Bosciio exhibited a portrait of a young African man suffering from albinism and . This work attracted widespread attention and also reflected the main characteristics of his portrait works - blurred facial features, making people unable to judge their identity. The mouth, face and other concrete parts appearing in the artist's character series are like being covered with layers of veil, glowing faintly in the dark background like an abyss. As the viewing angle and distance change, the image and outline in the picture begin to lose focus and gradually deviate from the original specific form. In the process of constantly exploring the "disappearance" of his image, he focused on the portrayal of the soul of life, while returning the viewer's attention to the expressiveness of the painting itself.

Under the influence of Northern Flanders Renaissance and long-term observation of mild sunshine in Italy, Bosciio's interior works describe a touching spatial atmosphere for us: some works focus on detailed portrayals and are closely structured, while others focus on expressing hazy abstractions, and the pictures are shrouded in warm light. Most of this batch of works presents a boundless spatial structure created by the minimalist geometric shape - an empty room with a door leading to another place. As the connection between two spaces, there is always a faint light at its boundary and extension, like a horizon that is inaccessible, triggering the viewer's thinking, wanting to explore the distant, alienated reality and the other side at the unknown end.

In this exhibition, In the world, the space also discusses the expression of geometry and space in painting, using screens in the oriental cultural context as a medium to isolate the noisy external world and create a space alone for the viewer.

Robert Bosciio once recorded in his work notes: "I like paintings that are full of passion but not noisy." When we look at Bosciio's works, it is more like inviting the viewer to feel the deep space and quiet moments of the present, to realize the existence of real emotions and consciousness in life, to listen to the whispers of paintings, and to understand this magical stillness. (Text/Ye Rong)

Shanghai | Painter Yu Qiping

The rigor and implicitness in the ink and wash arhat pictures

Yu Qiping

Recently, Shanghai Liu Haisu Art Museum held the "New Ink and Wash" Four-person Exhibition of Contemporary Ink and Wash Collection" to display the works of four artists in Shanghai, namely Ji Ping, Yu Qiping, Bai Ying and Ni Wei, who are in the collection. From the perspective and language of the artists' unique style, they show the various possibilities of contemporary ink and wash creation in Shanghai, presenting a new look of diversified coexistence, in-depth exploration, and interaction. Among them, Yu Qiping's works are large-scale Arhat characters in "Mu Yan Tu" created in April and May 2022. The fine brushwork techniques and rendering methods have attracted a lot of attention. Yu Qiping was admitted to the Department of Fine Arts of Nanjing University of Art in 1980 and majored in Chinese painting . He graduated from Nanjing University of Art in 1984 and his two works were selected for the 6th National Art Exhibition . Later, he worked at Jiangsu Art Publishing House and served as the editor of "Jiangsu Painting". In 1991, he went to Japan and left Jiangsu Painting. He has held many personal art exhibitions and published personal art collections. His works have participated in many important exhibitions at home and abroad and have been collected.

Art critic Xu Mingsong commented on Yu Qiping's works like this, "Yu Qiping's paintings are good because they seem to be true and illusory, not 'real' images and characters. The silly, so cunning, that confusion, and then entering into meditation. When it is false, the true is also false, and it is inside, and the image is in love; from the outside, it is high and concise.Half obsessed with half separation, half separation, like hide and seek, it is like watching Teacher Yu's smiling face wearing a fashionable red frame, half of the scholar's depth, half of the artist's humor, but in fact, what is fundamentally inside is half sea water and half of the flame. "

works of more than Qiping

works of more than Qiping

Virgo painter himself said that a good painting requires both rigorous skills, fun and casualness, and implicit "suppressed". It can be said that a "necessary, both want, and even want".

Art critic and agent Shi Jianbang believes that Yu Qiping's treatment of fine brushwork can be said to be exhausted and painstaking. "He likes three alums and nine dyes, and he enjoys it. I once saw a work. In order to set off the gray and dark background atmosphere, he never tires about it. He paints it on the ground over and over again. Finally, the thick part in the middle emits a black gold light, like an ancient rubbing. ‘I was stained again!’ Teacher Yu smiled bitterly. In pursuing the ultimate in painting, he shows his true nature as a Virgo, which is completely different from his usual casual and free manner. "

(Compiled/Wancheng)

Shanghai | Painter Ji Ping

Ink and Wash Solo Exhibition

"Inside and Outside the Play - Ji Ping's New Ink and Wash Solo Exhibition" was recently exhibited in Mingshanfang, located in the online New Economic Industrial Park of Jiading.

It can be compared that Ji Ping's ink and wash works were also exhibited at the Liu Haisu Art Museum in Shanghai. Ji Ping was born in Shanghai in 1956. A painter of Shanghai Chinese Academy of Painting, Shanghai Academy of Calligraphy and Painting, painter, Chinese drama character painting Vice President of the Research Association. Ji Ping's ink use and shape may have the shadow of new art and expressionism . Most of the exhibited this time are his ink and wash opera characters. Compared with the past, he pays more attention to the structure and writing of large blocks.

Ji Ping has been doing various forms of ink and wash creation. During the epidemic, he once said that in his recent daily works, "from true feelings to real feelings, and then from real feelings to real scenes", drawing a special spring day.

Ji Ping's painting

Ji Ping's painting

"I remember seeing Ji Ping in the first time I participated in the Ming Dynasty's elegant collection. At first glance, Ji Ping didn't say much, was calm and humble, and often smiled on his face, looking like a good uncle in the old Shanghai alley, which made me feel good. Later, many familiar teachers told me that Ji Ping's art and character were highly praised in the circle. "Cursor Yin Hao said that later he entered Ji Pingshi's Hongkou studio, and when he entered the door, he was surrounded by different styles and paintings, and the atmosphere of paintings with heavy brush and ink colors. Appreciating the paintings carefully, it was bright, mellow, simple and refreshing. Master Ji Ping told me that he was originally from a comic strip, and he especially enjoyed the time of free creation in the studio alone. Recently, he liked to use heavy ink colors to express his clumsy interest. In my opinion, this is the same as playing and collecting. When he reached a certain level, he must be a clumsy. The simplicity, naturalness and plainness of innocence are OK Used to place the soul. However, the most amazing thing is the screen of opera characters on corrugated paper. Ji Ping told me that this was originally a waste utilization of express boxes. Collision and fusion, publicity and restraint, everything is just right. In addition to admiration, I vaguely realized the realm of the old naughty boy Zhou Botong Flying flowers and picking leaves and analyzing wood as a sword. (Zong He)

Shanghai | Artist Alice Chen

"Terrace Plan" sponsor review project

Alice Chen Photographer: Wu Liang

Yang Zhenzhong , "Spring Equinox", the fifth issue of "Terrace Plan" site, 2021, picture by Alice Chen Huiyun.

At the entrance of the Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art, willow trees and mulberry trees were planted on both sides of the Miaojiang Road trail. The work was called "Spring Equinox", which was originally planted by Yang Zhenzhong, an artist of the fifth period of the "Terrace Plan". The “Terrace Project” was initiated by artist Alice Chen. In the past two years, she has invited artists working and living in Shanghai to Villa Barcelona to conduct artistic practice, research and exchanges based on the terrace's specific building history, site characteristics, geographical location and surrounding environment. There are ten periods of the project, each period invites one/group of artists to create, showing the diversity of of Shanghai artists . In addition to exhibiting works, a "Tait Chat" will be held here, and guests will be invited to conduct open discussions on a related topic. The weekly live broadcast event allows the art activities on the terrace to break through the limitations of offline space and reach more audiences.

Shanghai Contemporary Art Museum's "Terrace" Special Document Exhibition, the exhibition site

The artists participating in the program include artists Zhang Ding, Yu Ji, Shi Yong, Yin Yi, Yang Zhenzhong, Wang Xin, Ding Yun, as well as "Jiangnan Jizhan" and Deyi Studio. Among them, Yu Ji, as an artist and host of the morning art space, respectively, displays Yu Ji's work "Stone on the Mountain"; Yin Yi's work "Music on the Terrace" focuses on the terrace as a complex mechanism in the public space, mobilizes the audience's body and hearing, and reflects on the common behavior and space. Yang Zhenzhong's "Spring Equinox"

tells the fables of positive and negative, visible and invisible, and seeks unexpected ways of growing in the reversal living situation.

As sponsor and manager Alice Chen said, “The ‘Terrace Project’ should be regarded as all that has been experienced and generated through this project, both past and future. It is a common generation that is joined by all those who come into contact with it, constantly updated.” The exhibition will continue until September 23. (Text/Huang Song)

Beijing | Painter You Yong

Painting people who are neither happy nor relaxed

You Yong

Starting from August 27, an exhibition of the same name by the artist You Yong was presented at the Contemporary Tang Art Center. The exhibition displays about 70 works such as characters, scenery, and still life created by the artist since 2010.

You Yong has a complete educational background in the college system, from Central Academy of Fine Arts , Central Academy of Fine Arts to Chinese Academy of Arts . In terms of painting subjects, You Yong painted portraits, human bodies, landscapes, still lifes, large sizes, small pieces, cloth surfaces, wooden boards, etc. Through various attempts, You Yong gradually found his own painting path. Critic Wang Min'an commented on You Yong: "He believes that the painting tradition of modernism, including classical realism and Cezanne , and Van Gogh , still has vitality (for many young people, modernism is already a dead tradition). Or, he really loves and is familiar with this long tradition that is both coherent and heterogeneous, and is repeatedly trained and learned in different styles."

"Fables of Painting"

"The Summer of Bright Horse River"

You Yong's portrait characters are usually full of hidden passion: silent, cold, solemn, serious, and seem to have a lot of thoughts. The characters in the painting have different identities and various identities, but their common characteristic is unhappiness. In You Yong's painting, it seems that everyone is neither happy nor relaxed. In addition to these purely single portraits, those multi-person portraits indoors, those two-person portraits, even if they live together, even if they are in a state of rest, they are not happy and relaxed. "We want to emphasize again that while You Yong paints these characters and backgrounds, he always emphasizes special painting grammar and techniques, such as the contrast between light and shadow, partial deletion of space, and prominent brushstrokes on small paintings, etc. This is still the part that You Yong learned from tradition." Wang Min'an said. (Text/Gao Dan)

Shanghai | Hu Yinping

She created "Hu Xiaofang and Qiao Xiaohuan"

Hu Yinping's solo exhibition "Hu Xiaofang and Qiao Xiaohuan" was held recently in the Ming Contemporary Art Museum.Hu Yinping was born in Sichuan. She often promotes the establishment and production of relationship networks through the creation and transformation of events, roles, and identities, and stimulates untrained initiative from it, expressing her response to the surrounding environment through a humorous and action-oriented language.

This exhibition is Hu Yinping's first solo exhibition in the art museum, presenting his "Xiaofang" project that has been carried out since 2015, and revealing the hidden character behind "Xiaofang" for the first time - "Qiao Xiaohuan". "Xiaofang" originated from Hu Yinping's hometown when she returned to her hometown in Sichuan. She found that her mother and the aunts in the town were knitting a kind of wool hat and were bought at a low price. Later, she entrusted her friend to play "Xiaofang" and acted as a humane acquirer, introducing her mother Yin Sanjie and "Xiaofang", and began to acquire the hat knitted by her mother at a higher price. Over time, other aunts in the town were attracted by them and participated in this network woven by sweet lies. "Xiaofang" touched the aunts to devote themselves to various strange creative propositions. Based on their respective living conditions and imagination, the aunts created the "bikini" ("snow-white pigeon" series), "imaginary enemy and weapons" ("sense of security" series) and "standard configuration" (the ongoing "standard" series), etc.; the ecology of the town and their lives have undergone tremendous changes...

"Hu Yinping Solo Exhibition: Hu Xiaofang and Qiao Xiaohuan" exhibition site, Ming Contemporary Art Museum, Shanghai, 2022, the picture is provided by Ming Contemporary Art Museum

"Xiaofang" as a relationship link, bringing the group portraits of working women from the last century back to the present day. Another fictional character supporting this "scam" is Hu Yinping's hidden identity for many years - Qiao Xiaohuan. "Qiao Xiaohuan" is the image of a commercial artist created by an artist. She is like a fish in water in the commercialized market, allowing Hu Yinping herself to avoid the pressure of survival reality and feed back to the "Xiaofang" plan of continuous production.

"Xiaofang" and "Qiao Xiaohuan" are Hu Yinping's two fictional identities, and her creations are about shuttle between several real and fake aesthetic clones, creating events, creating connections, and establishing her own artist ecological map. The exhibition will last until December 25. (Text/Huang Song)

Editor in charge: Lu Sijia

Proofreading: Liu Wei