New Galerie - Booth A 102
Li Shurui, Ginkgo biloba, 2019, acrylic on canvas on board, φ100cm. Courtesy of the artiste and New Galerie.
New Galerie presents three artists that reference ancient practices such as agriculture, astronomy, astrology, or the hand-gathering of materials. Li Shurui spray paints round canvases, creating an optical three-dimensional effect that emulates moons. Wang Sishun creates a bronze cast every year from the fruit harvested from a certain tree. Zhang Zhenyu creates paintings using a traditional lacquer technique, but using dust he collects instead of pigments.
The artworks all required the artist to dedicate a significant amount of time and work. While we question our relationship to the natural environment and to production, the slow processes displayed by the artist also invite us to think about our place in the world.
Furthermore, all three artist engage with the transformative power of the contemporary art object. Li Shurui's moon paintings incorporate symbols that can be combined together, evoking stellar constellation, astral symbolism or feng shui. She uses them as props in her movies where they appear as objects accompanying daily life and moods. Wang Sishun's cast fruits are sold each year for the same fixed price, but the amount of fruits on offer to collectors depends on the harvest, on weather and luck. Finally, the dust gathered by Zhang Zhenyu in his studio to realise his paintings is given its colour by its content of pollution. In this sense, his paintings bear witness to our times.