The Eighteen Scenes | 十八个现场

Reflecting the Sharing Moment | Section Four

2020艺讯网线上展览

2020艺讯网英文版最新线上展览项目“Reflecting the Sharing Moment”（缩写为RTSM）正式开启，第四期“十八个现场”已上线！我们邀请了来自世界各地的艺术家，带来他们在2020的思考和创作。

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RTSM｜2020线上展览合集

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As the last phase of  2020 "Reflecting the Sharing Moment", "The Eighteen Scenes" has shared18 artists/groups' artistic thinking of the year 2020. These scenes cannot fully represent the overall epitome of this year, but they are indeed true representations of some cross-sections.

In this section, we would like to introduce artists ZHOU Li and Buket SAVCI, as well as their artistic reflections to the year 2020. 

ZHOU Li｜周力

"The Spring of 2020"

Zhou Li

Graduated in 1991 from Department of Oil Painting, Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts. Lived and worked in France during 1995-2003. Former titles: Guest Artist of Shenzhen Art Academies; Guest Professor in Art Design College of Shenzhen University; Artistic Consultant of Shenzhen Airport. Current titles: Director of the Institute of Abstraction and Contemporary Arts, in the Centre of Research on Artistic and Cultural Innovation and Development, Sun Yat-sen University since 2015; Guest Professor in Department of Oil Painting, Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts since 2013; Art Director of Boxes Art Space of OCAT Shenzhen since 2015; Art Director of Boxes Art Museum since 2017; Director of No.5 Studio in the Department of Oil Painting of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts.

Latest solo exhibitions: “Shadow of the Wind”, February –June, 2017, Yuz Museum (Shanghai); “The Ring of Life: Zhou Li Solo Exhibition”, September, 2017, Hive Center for Contemporary Art (Beijing); April— June, 2019, “Standing in the middle of the window”, White Cube Bermondsey (London). Collectors of her works include museums, groups and individuals.

Scan the QR Code to View ZHOU Li's Page

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This Spring in the year of 2020, Mixed media on canvas, 400x1200cm, 2020

The Spring of 2020 (Painting)

This exhibition chooses “Spring” as its title, showcasing her latest pieces in 2020. They are a natural continuation of her previous series “La Bleu J'adoré” and “The Peach Garden” which refuse to be pinned down, just yet. The exhibition revolves around Zhou Li’s recent theme of “natural space, urban space, humanistic space”. Its signature color schemes and materials, its strokes that incorporate traditional calligraphy, and its idiosyncratic visual system and rhythm, together create a sense of space that is both symbolic and striking. Thus, these works throw all the frustrations, hardships, and hope in the spring of 2020, as well as all the emotions, reasons, and thoughts triggered by spring in the broader sense, into the ineffable “gaze into space”.

These new works include a ten-meter-long large painting The Spring of 2020, divided into an asymmetrical left and right. The left half of the painting presents a scrimmage between blue and green, two colors that bite and invade into each other, one is like the negative of the other, creating an ephemeral sense of speed and loss. Splintered strokes and pink fragments could be found in the mix, like crispy echoes resounding in space. They come with no symbolic meaning, purely visual, tantalizing the audience with their tangled memories of the spring of 2020. The right half of the painting, on the other hand, reminds one of weeds full of vitality and a feral quality, wild strokes echoing and supporting each other. Rather than expressive, we should probably characterize them as introspective and dependable, originating from a tacit trust in the energy of life. These strokes obscure the pink looming in the background. Zhou Li once said, pink represents love and hope shared by all; here, pink is the secret hidden in the urban, humanistic space: we can rarely see pink in a busy city, but the breath and warmth of humanity can be found in everyone’s heart.

This Spring in the year of 2020, Details

The large painting makes one think of an interview with Zhou Li about the pandemic: every day, one is immersed in sadness and pain, and finds art to be futile in the face of tragedies. Any work about the pandemic is an exploitation. But the pandemic will become part of the life experience, and every thought and action one takes thereafter shall start from this premise. This painting has nothing to do with the pandemic itself, but can be appreciated by everyone who has gone through the pandemic, for everyone has changed, for everyone’s gaze has now taken on a hue of pain and reflection.

The length of the other six works entitled “Spring” is respectively 6 meters. With this shorter title of a series, and in this special year of 2020, they present retrospectively every kind of spring that human beings have experienced. Not only warm natural scenes and flowers can be found in spring, but also collective memories of happiness and disasters. What’s more important is that every human has a unique memory about spring in his/her limited length of life. These experiences may be insignificant, but they are the most reliable parts which build together a humanistic space. Urban space and natural space are both parts of this space of humanity, because they also provide authentic experiences of lives instead of mere concepts or stands, with the tolerance of nature and the vitality of a city.

This Spring in the year of 2020, Details

The space of spring has no national boundaries, nor borders between cities and nature. It is ubiquitous, because every human being can find the spring and has his/her unique connection to it. Zhou Li believes that a human being’s perception of the world is eventually based on his/her perception of him/herself. No matter where we are, what concepts or stands we hold, we have deep in our hearts the desire for love and peace. As long as we know this, we can cherish the equality and freedom even in a time of differences and confrontations. This is not only the traditional value in ancient Chinese thoughts, but may also be the new starting point of the post-modern world today. The world has too many crises and too many concepts today, and before all the debates and speeches, people should find each other again as pure creatures of the universe, born from the love of heaven and earth. The contemporary art scene has enough reflections and questions today, so Zhou Li tries to give an answer.

Details of Painting Draft

The Spring of 2020 (Installation)

Installation View of The Spring of 2020

The spring of 2020 feels like a knocked over glass of water, or a fall into the abyss. It’s about unprepared sadness and fears. However, the plants in my garden remained the same, like an outsider of everything. They have been protected by nature. And their colors and textures helped me to find a way in the darkness. They have pointed out where the “The Peach Garden” is.

The materials of this work include dried flowers (collected in 2020), reinforcing steel bars, cloths and cement. These materials have been shaped according to the forms of flowers, or the touches in Chinese calligraphy, with different kinds of lines. These lines are warm, but the materials are cold. The work as a whole, is a freeze-frame of a scene with zero gravity.

Installation View of The Spring of 2020 

Installation Draft

Buket SAVCI

 "When we need it the most we are told not to touch."

Buket Savci is a Turkish American artist. Previously a landscape architect she started studying painting in her home town of Istanbul. After immigrating to NYC in 2006, she received her BFA in painting from Pratt Institute,and MFA from New York Academy of Art.

She was awarded Wolf Kahn and Emily Mason Painting Fellowship at Vermont Studio Center and a three-month artist residency at Pilotenkueche in Leipzig, Germany. She has won the People’s Choice Award at the Jonathan LeVine Projects’ Delusional Art Competition, Grand Prize for See. Me’s Represent and Dave Bown Projects’ competition. Her work has been exhibited widely internationally and nationally at venues such as Ethan Cohen KuBe, Flowers Gallery, RJD Gallery, Field Projects, Kustera Projects, the Untitled Space, Art Hamptons, Governors Island Art Fair, The Immigrant Artist Biennial in NYC, Corey Helford Gallery in Los Angeles, CA, Wausau Museum of Contemporary Art, WI, Masur Museum of Art in Monroe, LA, Biennale Arcipelago Mediterraneo, Palermo, Italy, and Contemporary Istanbul Art Fair in Istanbul, Turkey. She had her first solo show at Olcay Art in Istanbul in 2014, two solo exhibitions at Kunstverein Ludwigsburg in Germany in 2018 and recently a solo show at Manifest Gallery in Cincinnati, OH.

Publications of Buket Savci’s work include; The Figure: Painting, Drawing, and Sculpture published by Skira Rizzoli, Istanbul Codex: Contemporary Artists From Turkey by Imago Mundi, Whitehot Magazine, Create Magazine, Poets and Artists Magazine, and the 7th International Painting Annual by Manifest Press.

She lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

Scan the QR Code to View Buket SAVCI‘s Page

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Not So Long Ago, oil on canvas, 44 x 54 inches (112x137 cm), 2020

When we need it the most we are told not to touch. Touching suddenly became the most scary and dangerous thing. After 100 days of self quarantine during the New York State lockdown because of the Covid-19 pandemic, I question along with many other anxieties of whether we can ever be comfortable to touch and be with each other again. In a couple of weeks’ time we, the lonely crowds of the metropolises have become more like strangers and lonelier than ever before. Social distancing, isolation and then quarantined on top of the unknown future made us realize the definition of freedom all over again. We realise how free we were even though we were not aware of it, and daily life was easy when we were not worrying about viruses.

I am an immigrant woman who, after a series of tragedies, decided to change everything in my life. Injustice, inequality, corruption, conservatism, everything became unbearable. Initially I quit my job as a landscape architect and went back to school for painting. Then I left everything; family, friends, my dream school, and immigrated.

Maybe it was an escape, migrating to the other side of the Atlantic. Might be the hope for more freedom. Or just to start over. While dealing with longing, and craving for emotional comfort my art has become about that place and forgets everything beyond that emotional paradise. I started to ask myself what makes me keep going? What makes me happy?

And the World Went Away, oil on wood panel, 12 x 12 inches (30x30 cm), 2020

My recent paintings orchestrate multiple figures entangled with each other surrounded by inflatables and toys, painted in vivid colors with details of textiles, clothing and patterns. Away from any kind of negativity figures enjoy the moment; freedom and love despite all the threats surrounding them outside of their confined environment. People are still aware of the short lifespan of that perfect harmony that will pop like a balloon soon. I use inflatables as a metaphor for our short lived contentment, the ephemerality of pure joy and happiness. They also represent the false sense of security and question our constant drive for satisfaction and pleasure.

Observing the loneliness and need for attention, accompanied with a consumerism frenzy globally, my art evolved from being about my own personal crisis, to capturing the universal emotional state, especially during the current global and domestic social and environmental problems. My paintings have become an exploration of definitions of freedom and happiness while expressing the power of diversity.

Image and Text Courtesy of the Artists.

Edited by Sue and Emily/CAFA ART INFO

About the Exhibition

关于展览

The Eighteen Scenes

Reflecting the Sharing Moment | Section Four

2020艺讯网线上展览 | 第四回

Launch Date: 2020.12.30

Participating Artists

 (in alphabetical order of surnames):

CHEN Hui, Hannah COOKE, Dadawa, Michael EADE, FEI Jun, Erik JEOR, JIANG Jie, MA Lu, Martina MORGER, Buket SAVCI, Jakub SIMCIK, Elvire SOYEZ, WU Didi, YAO Lu, YUAN Wu, ZHAN Wang, ZHI Min, ZHOU Li

Curator: Emily ZHOU

Visual Design: Yizhi ZHANG

Organizer: CAFA ART INFO

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