计文于-朱卫兵

Up the Mountain/Down the Mountain

source: shanghartgallery
用布和丝、棉等纺织材料塑造形象、制造软装置是计文于与朱卫兵的艺术语言。纺织物柔软随和的质感为艺术家实施和完成作品提供了无穷的变化。同时，利用这种温和而毫无攻击性的材料，计文于和朱卫兵的创作却独具力量，他们的作品涉及社会制度和人性状态等各种话题。《上山？下山》是艺术家耗时3年多完成的作品。此作品由888个“上山”和888个“下山”的人偶组成，在近期香格纳画廊计文与于朱卫兵个展“跟着！跟着！跟着！”上首次展出。艺术家试图以个人的艺术劳动来审视历史上和现实中的群体模式，鸿篇巨制中每一个个体的无意识被一种浪漫而近乎时空凝滞的手法呈现出来。
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
source: acaforgau
Ji Wenyu and Zhu Weibing were born in 1959 and 1971 respectively, and currently live and work in Shanghai. Both graduated from the Shanghai Art & Crafts School and undertook a Foundation Scholarship in Vermont Studio Centre in the USA. They have been exhibited on an international scale in Asia, Europe and America. Ji Wenyi and Zhu Weibing have participated in numerous exhibitions including ‘Big Draft Shanghai’, Kunstmuseum Bern, Switzerland (2010), ‘Soft Sculptures’, ShanghART, Shanghai (2008), ‘HyperDesign’, Shanghai Biennale, Shanghai Art Museum (2006), Here the Scene is Better, H-Space ShanghART Gallery (2006), Dressing Up before Going Out, Museum 52 (London, 2006), Infinite Painting, Villa Manin – Centre for Contemporary Art, Passariano, Codroipo (Udine, 2006), Original, Shanghai Original Art Center (2004) and Money and Value, the Last Taboo, Expo 02 (Switzerland, 2002).

Having been part of the 6th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art at Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern art, they are now part of their permanent collection, as well as other prestigious collections on an international scale. Their delicately balanced works owe much to Zhu’s training as a fashion designer and art professor, while Ji worked previously as a painter, incorporating a critical take on Western Pop art in particular.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
source: shanghartgallery
Climbing Up the Mountain, Climbing Down the Mountain will be showed in NUO Hotel Beijing on 21st May to 21st August in 2016. This is ShanghART Gallery’s first cooperation with NUO Hotel. NUO Hotel belongs to the Beijing Tourism Group and also is the leading brand of national ‘Made in China’ luxury hotel.

Soft installation is artistic language adopted by JI Wenyu and ZHU Weibing who employ fabric like cloth, silk and cotton for countless changes and possibilities. Seemingly gentile and nonaggressive, however, material of these types equips the artists with unique power. Their works cover themes like social structure and humanity and all sorts of statuses. It took them three years to complete Climbing up the Mountain, Climbing down the Mountain. Composed of 888 figures climbing up and down the mountains respectively. JI and ZHU attempt to inspect the group pattern both in history and at present by personal labour. And the unconsciousness shared by every single figure in their masterpiece is rendered in a way which is so romantic that it appears frozen in time and space.

JI Wenyu (b. 1959), Zhu Weibing (b. 1971), they began cooperation of creating soft sculpture in 2003. In recent years, Ji Wenyu has continued to create “Kitsch Art”, similar to his previous works, with the collaboration and help of his wife Zhu Weibing. Their soft fabric sculpture provides insight into the unique charm of another art language. This form seems “the only one” of its kind in the contemporary art world. It is not by chance that they chose cloth as a medium. Zhu Weibing has been engaged in the clothing design industry for a long time now. The cloth is soft, gentle, and easy to shape. It corresponds with and mirrors Ji Wenyu’s personality and art spirit as well. Through their own idea, design, and handmade production, using different characteristics of different cloth textures, the couple builds a landscape style garden with a stage like display, and typical “Chinese” puppets. The sculpture ridicules the present ideality and the absurdity of a prosperous modern society. As spectators of the world, this is what they want.