Art

Strong Yet Silent

The Bell Gallery merges East and West

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This month, a new show is opening at Brown’s Bell Gallery: The work of emerging Chinese artist Jin Shan will take center stage amidst all the usual activity in September.

In the new exhibit, My dad is Li Gang! 我爸是李刚!, Shan creates a large-scale installation referencing a space station that was launched by the Chinese back in 2011. In addition to the space station, Shan has included a bicycle – the vehicle used by many poor migrant workers living in China. The title of his latest show is a social meme in Chinese contemporary pop culture, addressing the nation’s corrupt financial and political elite who avoid taking responsibility for their impact on others. The combination of the bicycle and the space station reflect on the installation’s title, because it is on the broken backs of China’s working class that the 2011 space station was created.

In the last couple of years, the rest of the world started to tune into the struggle that many Chinese artists face regarding freedom to create work that invokes a social commentary on government. Despite being unable to talk openly about the state of artistic freedom in their country, contemporary Chinese artists have found a way to comment about what is happening in their country through their work.

Jin Shan’s work has instigated his audience to label him as a sensationalist or a jester. Shan chose to take the humorous and satirical route simply because it allowed him to subtly say what he wants, believing that approach to be more effective than outright criticism. Fellow Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang also tackles social commentary in his work, some of which was exhibited this past year at the Cohen Gallery at Brown’s Granoff Center.

Ian Alden Russell is the driving force behind Shan’s exhibit. My dad is Li Gang! features his largest work to date and will be only the second time Shan has exhibited solo in the States, a very exciting coup for Providence.

Russell has tapped into an important art world trend: Contemporary Chinese art is in popular demand among institutions and buyers, especially as more cutting-edge work trickles across the Pacific, and Chinese artists seek artistic asylum.

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