SHANGHAI.- The title of this exhibition “Microscope” was chosen as a way to reflect the current developments of Chinese contemporary art. In the past decade, the growing diversity of Chinese contemporary art in many ways is similar to the development in Chinese society and its economy, where artists turned from the ideological narratives and collective expressions, to become more individualistic in their artistic style, depicting personal experiences from daily life. This newly evolved artistic language can be found in different art genres including painting, sculpture, installation, moving images and mixed media artworks.

Microscope: The Inner Mindscape of 5 Contemporary Chinese Artists - features works of contemporary Chinese artists of different ages and experiences: Gao Weigang, Ren Zhitian, Li Yiwen, Lin Ke and Hu Weiyi, each displaying their individual aesthetic and philosophy through diverse works through different mediums.

Artist Gao Weigang’ work Up No. 2, a conceptual sculpture/installation, is three-dimensional when seen from a long distance and two-dimensional when seen from a short distance. Gao’s concept is that precise lines can sometimes steer us to wrong judgment ... misleading us to a journey of unfulfilled dreams. Reality can be an illusion harbouring uncertain pathways and false steps, leading the complacent self the wrong way.

Artist Ren Zhitian uses fuel ash residue collected from car exhaust pipes as ink. Ren creates 4 works displaying the elegance of Chinese calligraphy with exhaust carbon, showcasing the majestic beauty of Chinese art in the dynamic, kinaesthetic brush movements.

The use of fuel ash residue collected from car exhaust pipes as ink and creating a series of patterned works on silk, reflects his concerns for ecological problems. This interesting juxtaposition of beauty and waste, elegance and filth, make this a unique series, showing how the artist pushes the boundaries of the revered traditional art.

Li Yiwen’s Square Matrix and Square Matrix 2 and Guan, are paintings set in a Light grey tone, emphasizing a still environment and the solitary of buildings and empty spaces. The paintings of Li Yiwen reflect an underlining message of the subjectivity of psychological dislocation. Li Yiwen adopts the post-modern representation, integrating elements such as reality, fiction, dislocation and novel scenes into the painting vocabulary, not only expanding the rhetoric aesthetics of painting, but also constructing new painting narration.

The work Electronic Music Always Makes People Dancing of Lin Ke is a new media work consisting of a ‘movement of images’ captured from internet and his computer operation system. In this work, Lin Ke wanted to explore new visual aesthetics through his daily work on his computer, where the artist himself acts as an interpreter of the virtual world and of reality.

The artistic concert of Pulp Landscape II by Hu Weiyi is an extended series of Hu’s earlier work Pulp Landscape I and the concept of live cinema. It is a miniature interactive film installation in a suitcase, where the audience can control the movements of the cameras and the montage by a terminal control with several buttons. The suitcase is a movable cinema with the movie controlled and directed by the audience.