China in four seasons: Song Dong + Yin Xiuzhen
China in four seasons: Song Dong + Yin Xiuzhen
Govett-Brewster Art Gallery
19 June – 12 September 2010
Beijing-based Song Dong has been a significant figure in the development of Chinese contemporary art since the early 1990s. He has exhibited at prestigious art fairs and institutions across the globe such as the 2006 Gwangju Biennale, South Korea; The Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), New York in 2009; and later this year at the Liverpool Biennale.
Incorporating photography, installation and video, he explores notions of transience, consumption and impermanence; notions shared by a community of Beijing-based conceptual artists responding to their country’s relentless and unprecedented march into the future.
Song Dong’s wife Yin Xiuzhen, also at the forefront of contemporary Chinese art, has also exhibited widely, including the 2007 Venice Biennale; the 7th Shanghai Biennale, 2008; and earlier this year at MOMA. Her often large-scale installations and sculptural works incorporate the use of everyday objects such as clothing and textiles as well as automobiles and aeroplanes to comment on development, urbanisation and globalisation – key factors of China’s integration into the global economy and power system within a domestic and personal frame.
China in four seasons: Song Dong + Yin Xiuzhen is curated by Gallery Director Rhana Devenport and will comprise two parts. The first part will present recent installations and video works from both artists, while the second part – entitled Song Dong + Yin Xiuzhen: The Govett-Brewster Projects – will feature new commissions by the Gallery for its fortieth year. Song Dong’s installation will be in collaboration with his eight-year-old daughter Song ErRui, while Yin Xiuzhen will undertake an off-site project. Both installations will open on Saturday 21 August.
The Govett-Brewster wishes to acknowledge the support of the following organisations in delivering the winter suite of exhibitions: Radio Network Taranaki, Te Kairanga Wines, Western Institute of Technology at Taranaki (WITT), Creative New Zealand and the Asia New Zealand Foundation.