Exhibition explores intersection of art, space and humans
Art exhibition "New LUXE" at the Bluerider ART Shanghai, a century-old historical building in the city's downtown area, explores the relationship between art, space and humans in modern life through paintings, sculptures and installations.
The exhibition features four installations made of wood, steel and chrome enamel from German artist Willi Siber. Known for adopting arresting textures and unexpected media, Siber started as a wood sculptor 50 years ago.
In his hands, heavy steel may appear as weightless as a balloon, while common materials such as wood, nails and cardboard combine into otherworldly, fantastical objects.
Siber's work is remarkable for its use of colors. With a palette ranging from muted Earth tones to electric hues of pink and green, he seems to match form to color as if by instinct. The bent-and-folded steel pipe sculptures, covered in pristine coats of enamel, possess a luxurious shimmer, beckoning like jewels, while other works, coated in darker, powdery hues, are quiet and subdued.
Wood wall object by Willi Siber
Two large lollipops, licked lightly, are melting in the corner, as if hurriedly thrown away like rubbish. They are the iconic Meltdown installations made of UV-cast resin by American-based artist Jonathan Paul, working under the alias Desire Obtain Cherish (D.O.C.). The artworks play on people's addictions, question what's obtainable and mock what we cherish, shining a light on the ills of consumption and the societal pressures that foster it.
"Swiss Cherry Meltdown" by D.O.C
Artist and filmmaker Caro Jost keeps to her basic artistic theme: the documentation of time, space and events, and the search for traces of the past, placing them in a contemporary context.
Since 2015, Jost has been working on the series INVOICE PAINTINGS and NOTES. She uses original archive materials she has found in the studios and estates of her favorite artists, whose working lives she has studied with great intensity, including Barnett Newman, Ad Reinhardt, Günther Uecker and Wassily Kandinsky.
NOTES W.K. June 28, 1911, (envelop to Gabriele Münter) by Caro Jost
Based on these templates, she produces large-format prints on shaped canvases, which she then transforms and paints over. The exhibition displays some of her artworks, one based on the envelope the Russian artist Kandinsky (1866-1944) wrote to his girlfriend – painter Gabriele Münter – on June 28, 1911.
Exhibition info
Dates: Through August 21 (closed on Mondays), 10am-7pm
Venue: Bluerider ART Shanghai
Address: 133 Sichuan Road M.
