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Li Xiaofeng

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Red Gate Gallery participates in 2013 ART021

Venue: The Rockbund – NIB Building, Shanghai
Exhibition Dates: November 28 - December 1, 2013

 

Press Release: About Li Xiaofeng's Artworks 

 

Considered one of the most original artists in China, Li Xiaofeng (b. 1965) is known for his unique use of porcelain shards.
Tang Zehui

Li makes wearable porcelain costume and installation from ceramic shards coming from the Song, Ming, Yuan and Qing dynasties, which are sewn together on a leather undergarment. Some of his projects include a suit jacket and tie as well as a number of mid-length women’s dresses.

 

Tang Zehui (Curator)

November 1, 2013

at the Red Gate Gallery

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Fragments Connecting Cultures

 

Like all other chinese artists, Li Xiaofeng took a long and striving road of study and artistic practice. After graduating from Hubei Huanggang Normal College in last century, he came all the way to pursue further studies in Central Academy of Fine Arts and completed graduate courses in 2002.  Then, Just like all the others persistently going in for art, Li chose to stay in Beijing, over the away - flying years.

 However, Li Xiaofeng also spent as much the same time completely bresking away from the tie of academic art that he once diligently sought for, and cautiously keeping some certain distance from all the current trends of arts, which has been proved to be an entirely necessary and wise decision as an artist. It surely requires courage and preparation of cost for the tenacity. It seemed that Li Xiaofeng stayed a little bit marginalized, whick yet was able to be pregnant with regenerative force all the time.

 We are clearly aware of that " Chinese culture" is the basic breakthrough point in Li's works. It has been thought of a difficulty when it comes to culture, Li Xiaofeng,  however, has such a sense of mission for it, and the finds it a theoretic basis with beautiful name "Post Orientalism". Chinese landscape was always a major theme in his large number of paintings created in past. instead of simply copying, like some other contemporary artists, the landscape  in his creation has been melt into heart and then rearranged, thus his works are so unique that we can taste the modern flavor of poetic deram and super realism.

 

Li Xiaofeng's recent installations are of so much charm. He chooses the real fragments of Ming - Qing blue - white porcelain as materials in his works for he has been obsessed in the research and collection of ancient porcelain over years.
Shen Jingdong

That makes his works smooth rather than meticulous, like and old monk mending his robe of patches or and ancient artiste making a jade dress. The process during which the polished fragments are linked together in series with silver thread through the cut holes is an artistic behavior itself, which reminds me of a short description of being a little goldfish in One Hundred Years of Solitude by Marx, that process maintaining certain meaningless significance like one's life.

 Li Xiaofeng kept indoors for three months, but finally he got a completely new appraisal: when hundreds of porcelain fragments are arranged in complete order on one garment, we even seem to read the information code left by our forefathers; while this modern garment made by arts of those dug up ancient porcelain fragments from long silent earth reflect today's sunshine, even people with little literacy are likely to have thoughts flooding in their mind: fragments or clothes?--- It is undoubtedly a conversation beween the past and today. I suppose that garment is merely a pretence or plea of the work, but the true meaning that is intended to convey is culture, which is a populous concept nowadays.

Shen Jingdong (Artist)

August 12, 2006

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1965

Born in Hubei City

2002

Graduated from Mural Department of Central Academy of Fine Arts

Present:             Lives and works in Beijing

Major Commissions

2019

Tiffany & Co, Shanghai

2015

Niccolo Hotels, Chengdu

China: Through the Looking Glass, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

2010                   Lacoste Polo Shirts

 

Solo Exhibitions

2021                   Porcelain Revival – Li Xiaofeng, Red Gate Gallery

2014

Li Xiaofeng Installation Art Exhibition, Kwun Tong, Beijing

2012

Memory by Li Xiaofeng, The Opposite House, Beijing

Group Exhibitions

2019

Dreaming of Crafts of the Future: Mongyudowon Unfolds, 11th Cheongju Craft Biennale 2019, Culture Factory C, Cheongju

2018

Cracked - Porcelain, Red Gate Gallery

 

2D vs 3D, Red Gate Gallery

 

798, We Are Back, Red Gate Gallery

2017

Red Gate on the Move, Red Gate Gallery

 

Contemporary Dialogues Between Fashion and Art, Zhu Zhong Art Museum

 

The Silk Road and Celestial Clothes, Taimiao Art Museum

 

Fusion – The International Exhibition of Contemporary Ceramic Art, Art Museum of Nanjing University of the Arts, Nanjing

2016

Red Gate: The Next 25 Years, Red Gate Gallery

2015

China: Through the Looking GlassThe Metropolitan Museum of Art, USA

2014

5th Tanwan Ceramics Biennale, Taipei County Yingge Ceramics Museum, Tanwan

 

ST. Start International exhibition of the Chinese Contemporary Ceramic Art, Today Art Museum, Beijing

2013

7th Gyeonggi International Ceramic Biennale 2013 Korea, Icheon CeraMIX Creative Center, Korea

2011

Ming to Nirvana, Red Gate Gallery

2010

Head On, Red Gate Gallery

 

Width Contemporary Art Exhibition, Museum of Contemporary Art, Beijing

2008

Virginia Miller Gallery, Miami

 

Asian Contemporary Art Fair, New York

2006

Sculpture, Pickled Art Centre

 

Consumption Times I, Ha Te Art Centre

2005

Diversity and Construction, Beijing

2004

X Yard, Beijing

 

Beijing International Art Camp

2002

CAFA Graduates’ Exhibition

Special Exhibition 特别展览

2019

Vision & Virtousity, Celebrating 180 years of artistry and innovation at Tiffany, Fosun Foundation, Shanghai

2010

Lacoste Women’s Polo Sculpture Launch, Yi Hotel, Beijing

2010

Lacoste Man’s Polo Sculpture Launch, Musee Des Arts et Metiers, Paris

Collection

Tiffany, Lacoste, Paris, Louis Vuitton, Shanghai, The Opposite House, Beijing, Private Collections in China and Overseas

 

 

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The In juries of a Thousand Years

in  "China: Through the Looking Glass" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

 

Li Xiaofeng's creative notes:

 

Since the time when it was the Mongol Yuan capital Khanbalik to the present day, Beijing has initiated its largest excavation projects of all time and, like a blue snake that has been hibernating for a millennium, the city is now stirring and shedding its old skin. It greedily emerges through the towering buildings, twisting free from the historical sediment of its ancient civilization. Blue-and-white porcelain shards that represent this civilization are unearthed in large quantities at the same time. These blue shards, bathed in the sunny skies of socialism and caressed by the contemporary cool breezes blowing from the west throughout the capital, assume a bewildering array of postures as fashion items entering the new century! These are the blue-and-white costumes! These emanate the splendor once crushed! These are the illusions flowing with sorrow!

 

Li Xiaofeng in Beijing, May 1, 2015

Translated by Dr Bruce Gordon Doar

 

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