About the Exhibit 

Afterimage: Dangdai Yishu spanned across Lisson Gallery’s two London locations on Bell and Lisson street from July 3rd to September 7th, 2019. Dangdai Yishu is the Chinese phrase for ‘Contemporary Art’. Curator Victor Wang brought together an impressive group of Chinese artists spanning multiple generations from 1960 to the present. 

“‘Afterimage: Dangdai Yishu’ attempts an overdue appreciation of the impact and lineage of what Wang calls the ‘post-figurative condition’ or hou juxiang zhuangtai, set in motion by China’s ’85 New Wave movement, and now reflected in the current artistic scene in China.” (source)

“Instead of simply defining Chinese art by geography or dividing it into pre-modern and post-modern, Wang proposes a lineage in which decades of figurative art and teaching have resulted in the conditions necessary for the current period of post-figuration, through interdisciplinary practices with pluralistic outputs” (source)

“By reusing the printed media in an entirely new context, Wang Youshen subverts and questions its original meaning.” - Shanghart Gallery (source) 

“Here in the West, we all have our own ideas about contemporary art from China. An image of an art scene that has been orientalised, fed to us through exhibitions that pop up from time-to-time, conflated with ideas about a booming Chinese art market, and that conform to a very narrow stereotype about life and politics in a country that is almost as big and as populous as the United States.” - Gallery Girl (aka Lizzy Vartanian Collier) Source

“We feel observed while walking on the colourful and beautifully weaved carpet by Lin Tianmiao (Protruding Patterns, 2014), adorned with Chinese characters accompanied by its English translations; the character 女 for woman repeatedly marks the surface. The ingenious combination of Xiang Jing’s sculpture, which explores questions of female identity in the modern age through a gender neutral, black-clothed figure, and Lin Tianmiao’s application of the traditionally-feminine practice of thread weaving, raises undeniable questions of gender.” - ArteViste (source) 

“A younger generation born after those tumultuous years and working within a global context will also be represented in the show, from aaajiao, whose DIY wall-coverings are infested with 404 messages from blocked websites from the continuing era of internet censorship within the so-called ‘great firewalls’ of .cn, to the nuanced video portraits depicting the diversity of ethic groups found in the contested region of Xinjiang, an inspection of nationhood and alienation by Zhao Zhao.” (source)

Visitors were allowed to take the 404 roller and paint the walls of the gallery themselves (see below).

About the Artists

Wang Youshen

“Wang Youshen's art is characterized by a focus on the influence mass media exerts on our thoughts, emotions, and actions.” - Shanghart Gallery (source) 

He attended the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing. He lives and works in Beijing. 

Yu Hong

“Yu Hong (born 1966) is one of the most representative artists of New Realist Painting in China. Her work focuses on the value of the individual within history, society and everyday life.” - The Tate (source) 

She attended the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing

“Her works characteristically portray the female perspectives in all stages of life and the relationship between the individual and the rapid social changes taking place in China.” - Wikipedia (source)

Lin Tianmao

“Lin’s work studies her own social role and the relationship between identity and social context, questioning the identity of woman and the conventional idea of the social role of woman as mother. Best known for her large-scale installations, Lin also works in sculpture, photography, video, and a variety of other media.” - Galerie Lelong & Co.

She attended Capital Normal University in China. She lives and works in Beijing, China.

Xiang Jing

“Xiang Jing (born 1968) works primarily with fibreglass sculpture to express her investigation of the ‘internality’ of human nature. Her representations of nude women convey the reality of the female form in all its imperfection while highlighting its philosophical nature.” - The Tate (source) 

She attended the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing

Shen Xin

“Shen Xin (1990, Chengdu) lives and works in London and Amsterdam. Through films and video installations, as well as performative events, Shen’s practice examines and fabricates techniques and effects of how emotion, judgment, and ethic circulate through individual and collective subjects. By focusing on interpersonal complexity and political narratives, their films often aim to generate reflexiveness to dismantle dominant power structures.” - MadeIn Gallery (source)

She attended LASALLE College of the Arts in Singapore, and earned her MFA from the Slade School of Fine Art in London. She lives and works in the UK. 

Aaajiao (aka Xu Wenkai) 

“aaajiao, is the online handle of Xu Wenkai, a Shanghai-based new media artist, avid blogger and free thinker.” - Gallery Yang (source) 

You can watch his TED talk here

“aaajiao's art and works are marked by a strong dystopian awareness (his year of birth being the synonym of George Orwell's classic allegorical novel), literati spirits and sophistication. Many of aaajiao's works speak to new thinkings, controversies and phenomenon around the Internet, with specific projects focusing on the processing of data, the blogsphere and China's Great Fire Wall.” -  Gallery Yang (source) 

Li Binyuan

“Beijing-based artist Li Binyuan explores physicality, chance, play and social values through actions, film works and performances that intervene in the social fabric of everyday Chinese society. His experiments occupy urban spaces, from the very public arena of the street, to remote post-industrial sites.” - Kadist (source)

He attended the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing. He currently lives and works in Beijing.

Ma Qiusha

“ Over the subsequent decade, the multimedia artist has become known for her video, performance and installation works that investigate complex relationships between people. In particular, the videos, mostly autobiographical, deal with memory, dislocation and how the post-1980s generation of artists has to come to terms with the contradictory pull of filial duties and personal freedoms.” - ArtAsiaPacific (source) 

She attended the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing. She received her MFA in Electronic Integrated Art, from Alfred University in New York. She Currently lives and works in Beijing.

Zhao Zhao

“Zhao Zhao’s multidisciplinary body of work is an inspection of China’s contemporary profile, and the socio-political consequences of individual human action. His abstract shattered glass paintings reveal a car accident he was involved in, and represents the ripple effect of action; his “Safe” sculptures substantiate his fellow citizens’ paranoid views on security.” - Chambers Gallery (source)

He graduated with a BFA from the Xinjiang Institute of Arts from the department of Oil Painting in 2003.