Prada presents 'Rear Windows', an exhibition by Li Qing at Prada Rong Zhai in Shanghai
The First Art Newspaper on the Net    Established in 1996 Friday, October 11, 2024


Prada presents 'Rear Windows', an exhibition by Li Qing at Prada Rong Zhai in Shanghai
Exhibition view of “Rear Windows” by Li Qing Prada Rong Zhai 7 November 2019 - 19 January 2020. Photo: Jacky Zhang from Z-Vision. Courtesy Prada.



SHANGHAI.- Prada presents “Rear Windows”, a new exhibition project by artist Li Qing, with the support of Fondazione Prada. Curated by Jérôme Sans, the show is on view from 7 November 2019 to 19 January 2020 in the premises of Prada Rong Zhai, a 1918 historical residence in Shanghai restored by Prada and reopened in October 2017.

“Rear Windows” is an immersive and collaborative project conceived on site by the artist Li Qing and the curator as a specific storyboard, an in-depth exploration of the history and the space of Prada Rong Zhai, creating a connection between the past times and the current urban environment of Shanghai.

Prada Rong Zhai can be considered as a palimpsest of Shanghai's century-old history. Before being restored to become a place dedicated to cultural activities, the building was the private residence of a successful entrepreneur, Mr Rong Zongjing, and then a public property after socialization. Li Qing imagines the building as a space still used by its residents or their contemporary ghosts. The artist recreates imaginary visions of key rooms, like the ballroom, the bedroom, the bathroom, and a karaoke room, where the presence of the former inhabitants is suggested through artistic gestures. The decision of re-occupying the vacant spaces generates a strange and cinematographic atmosphere, evoking the duality of our present lives, divided between authenticity and imitation, reality and reproduction.

“Rear Windows”—inspired by the eponymous 1954 movie directed by Alfred Hitchcock— is devised as a succession of climatic scenes to experience the act of seeing and of being seen or observed. Through some of his emblematic works like Neighbor’s Window and Tetris Window series, Li Qing suggests references to the city of Shanghai (or even Hangzhou, where the artist lives), where old and new buildings, different social groups, urban myths, legends and expectations coexist.

The exhibits also comprise new works and commissions like a neon sign installed on the external façade of Prada Rong Zhai, a cabin tent on view in its garden, a sound installation especially realized for the corridor of the first floor, and nine carpets printed with pictures of tiles patterns laid on the ballroom floor. The display is completed by a selection of recent paintings part of Find Differences series, video installations such as Neon News and paintings from the series Images of Mutual Undoing and Unity, that act like invitations to question our relationship to the moving world around us.

Jérôme Sans describes the exhibition, “as a narrative story conceived through a wide range of Li Qing’s past and recent works, unfolding as in a movie set of a film whose action is about to happen. Li Qing initiates here a new form of poetry in Prada Rong Zhai, one which belongs to an imaginary society and that lives in its past dreams, but also within his own work of today, continually questioning: how to be closer to the reality of things?”

Li Qing was born in 1981 in Hangzhou, and currently lives and works between Hangzhou and Shanghai. His practice focuses on mass consumerism and society’s hypocritical stances on ideals of beauty through various painting and multimedia techniques. In his later photography, video and installation works, the artist deals with several eternal themes or philosophical concepts, such as presenting subjects and humanity within their current social development context where they express their feelings of anxiety often felt in our contemporary society. An installation series Neighbor’s Window borrows the trompe-l'œil technique, combining old wooden window frames with the paintings of French and other colonial or new architecture behind glass, becoming cultural and artistic landmarks of the Shanghai urban space now. His solo shows have been presented in galleries and museums such as Tomás y Valiente Art Centre, Madrid; The Orient Foundation, Macao; Goethe Institute, Shanghai; and Arario Museum, Seoul. He has also participated in a number of significant group shows in important institutions, such as the 9th Shanghai Biennale, the 55th Venice Art Biennale, Institut Valencia d’Art Modern (IVAM), Seoul Museum of Art; National Gallery of Indonesia in Jakarta, Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, São Paulo Museum of Contemporary Art, and Asian Art Museum of San Francisco.

Jérôme Sans is an internationally renowned art critic, curator, and institutional director. He was co-founder and co-director of the Palais de Tokyo, Paris from 2000 until 2006, former director of the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing (UCCA) from 2008 to 2012. Most recently, he was appointed as artistic director of the Emerige contemporary art foundation, Île Seguin, Paris. Sans has curated numerous major exhibitions, including the Taipei Biennial (2000), the Lyon Biennial (2005) and Nuit Blanche in Paris (2006), among others.










Today's News

November 8, 2019

Huge trove of mammoth skeletons found in Mexico

It's time to take down the Mona Lisa

Hundreds of bottles of liquor salvaged from WWI-era Baltic wreck

Anders Wahlstedt Fine Art opens 'Print selections from the Milbank Collection'

Exhibition at Jeu de Paume presents a selection of 150 photographs by Peter Hujar

Music Museum forced to leave Zutphen

Every photo tells a story. His spoke volumes

TEFAF New York Fall 2019 closes to notable sales and successful collaborations

Pace Gallery opens the first exhibition in its Geneva gallery of works by Antoni Tàpies

New report: Climate change threatens important cultural landscapes

Prada presents 'Rear Windows', an exhibition by Li Qing at Prada Rong Zhai in Shanghai

Marie Laforêt, French actress and singer, is dead at 80

Sotheby's to offer Audubon's iconic 'Birds of America' in special single lot auction for $6/8M this December

Offer Waterman Gallery announces debut New York exhibition recent paintings by Diarmuid Kelley

James Cohan announces the representation of Tuan Andrew Nguyen

Blind singer goes from streets to stardom in north Nigeria

West Africa's premier international art fair re-asserts itself as the choice destination in Nigeria

New drawings and sculptures by Tatiana Trouvé on view at Gagosian Beverly Hills

Jamea Richmond-Edwards explores Detroit's Fashion and style in 7 Mile Girls

Centro Pecci opens 'The Missing Planet: Visions and re-visions of Soviet Times'

At 88, Agnes Denes finally gets the retrospective she deserves

Elite Marvel comics #1 leads Heritage Auctions' Comics & Comic Art Auction

Museum of Arts and Design announces Indira Allegra as winner of 2019 Burke Prize

Ansel Adams and The American West: Photographs to benefit The Center for Creative Photography




Museums, Exhibits, Artists, Milestones, Digital Art, Architecture, Photography,
Photographers, Special Photos, Special Reports, Featured Stories, Auctions, Art Fairs,
Anecdotes, Art Quiz, Education, Mythology, 3D Images, Last Week, .

 



Founder:
Ignacio Villarreal
(1941 - 2019)
Editor & Publisher: Jose Villarreal
Art Director: Juan José Sepúlveda Ramírez
Writer: Ofelia Zurbia Betancourt

Royalville Communications, Inc
produces:

ignaciovillarreal.org juncodelavega.com facundocabral-elfinal.org
Founder's Site. Hommage
to a Mexican poet.
Hommage
       

The First Art Newspaper on the Net. The Best Versions Of Ave Maria Song Junco de la Vega Site Ignacio Villarreal Site
Tell a Friend
Dear User, please complete the form below in order to recommend the Artdaily newsletter to someone you know.
Please complete all fields marked *.
Sending Mail
Sending Successful