Under the Radar : Chinese Contemporary Art, Chen Liangjie,
Chen Wenling, Liu Hong, Lu Peng, Luo Brothers, Shen
Xiaotong, Sui Jianguo, Suo Tan, Yan Lei, Yu Fan, Yue Minjun,
Zhang Dali, Zhao Bo

Robischon Gallery is pleased to present "Under the Radar: Chinese Contemporary Art," an exhibition of several of the most celebrated artists working in China today. Given the growing significance of Asia in the world's current economic and political order, China's progressive contemporary art movement is highly regarded as pivotal to the global art scene. The artists, highlighted in this exhibition with painting, sculpture and works on paper, were decisively placed on the international map after the Cultural Revolution with art that challenged, and continues to challenge, the status quo.

While individually reflecting the atmosphere of the respective cities where they reside – Beijing, Chengdu and Chongqing – the artists represented in this exhibition, Chen Wenling, the Luo Brothers, Yu Fan, Chen Liangjie, Liu Hong, Lu Peng, Shen Xiaotong, Zhang Dali, Sui Jianguo, Yue Minjun, Zhao Bo, Suo Tan and Yan Lei, each express and illuminate their response to China's present conflict between its cultural memory and cultural reality.

Working from differing perspectives, the artists in some way address the rapidly expanding confluence of traditional Chinese and Western cultures through the fast-paced influx of Western products and ideals into China. For example, Chen Wenling's corpulent pigs pose questions about the ballooning inflation of consumer desires. Lu Peng imagery chaotically juxtaposes startled, flying figures with fragments of ancient architecture and whirling deities in his brightly-hued, predominantly red paintings. Confronting the injustice he sees directly, conceptual artist Zhang Dali captures the loss of homes in neighborhoods to gentrification with his outlined portrait illuminated in neon over the Chinese character for demolition. Chen Liangjie's understated, yet potent paintings address human nature viewed from afar. Liangjie's diminutive figures attack and support one another or isolate themselves within their vast, blue, dream-like world. Shen Xiaotong's psychological portraits offer a reflective narration; a self-scrutiny at a time of rapid change. Yu Fan refers to China's often violent past with a sculpture of the assassinated Communist figure Lui Hulan. Each artist's works holds multiple layers of meaning.

"Under the Radar" is a corresponding exhibition of additional and featured artists included in the new Denver Art Museum's exhibition entitled "Radar: Selections from the Collection of Vicki and Kent Logan." Artists featured in both exhibitions are the Luo Brothers, Yue Minjun, and Zhang Dali. Works by Lu Peng and Shen Xiaotong were included in the first Logan Collection gift to the DAM and were part of a 2003 exhibition entitled, "Full Frontal: Contemporary Asian Art from the Collection of Vicki and Kent Logan." Happy Life No. 4, the large-scale sow with her four piglets by Chen Wenling and Yan Lei's Painting #14 have been generously loaned to Robischon Gallery from this prestigious collection. This exhibition has been assisted greatly by the gallery's association with collectors Tom and Michelle Whitten and Michael and Jean Micketti. Robischon Gallery is grateful for their expertise and dedication to this project.