Amulet - Jia Hongjun's Thinking and Action
Exhibition time: July 4, 2020 to July 8, 2020
Artist: Jia Hongjun
Academic Director: Luo Shiping
Curator: Gu Yun
Executive Curator: Xiao Ran
Visual Designer: Jia Xiaochen
Host: Poly Art Museum
Exhibition held by: Dayi Art Net Lianyi (Beijing) Technology Co., Ltd
Venue: Poly Art Museum, Murray Building, 9F, Dongzhimen South Street, Dongcheng District, Beijing
NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / July 5, 2020 / Artist Jia Hongjun's first solo exhibition "Amulet - Jia Hongjun's Thinking and Action" opened on July 4, 2020 in Poly Art Museum. This exhibition concentrates on artist's latest works created in the past two years. By integrating the traditional image of an "Amulet" with contemporary artistic form, the artist's practice show a unique perspective based on his rich life experience, which has critical and realistic significance.
As an exhibition held during the epidemic period, Jia's practice is also an "Amulet"- a blessing symbol to all human beings who are experiencing the epidemic. Regardless of location, profession or ethnicity, it is the exhibition's wish that every viewer can receive the sincerity from this artist and scholar who, through his work, conveys blessings.
What is Amulet
After years of research on Chinese traditional culture, Jia Hongjun has created a number of contemporary artworks by using the forms of "Fu" and "Zhu" from traditional culture. The artist uses his unique artistic language. By excavating contemporary expressions from the traditional Chinese vocabulary, Jia reconstructs them into a set of independent visual systems - "Zhu" and "Fu".
The "Fu" and "Zhu" in Jia Hongjun's works correspond to "painting" and "verse", also indicates "image" and "text". The combination of visual image and text delivers a "structural call" to the "implied reader" in an unconventional way, and forms a new conceptual construction for fresh viewers. Jia hopes his audience can have a comprehensive view of "Fu" and "Zhu" by engaging their personal visual experience and timely understandings as a re-creating process via his works. Their participation and independent thinking form the comprehensive construction and the final "completion" of the work.
Contemporariness: the "Enclave" Land of Artist and Observer
In Jia's works, it is not hard to find his profound thoughts and humanistic care. In the interview, Jia said, "In the process of creating, I am totally in the context of contemporary art. There are so many ways to realize contemporary art, but I just chose one of those. From the subject matter to the planning of my expressive system, then to the way of my thinking and problem analysis, till the final appearance of artworks, I manage to distinguish my practice from traditional Chinese ink and wash painting, and I hope my audience can think with me."
Each work is combines many hours of drawing. The artist hopes to carry a kind of responsibility through the practice of painting, and regard the whole process of his thinking and practice as a way of self-salvation, so as to realize a kind of "sacrifice" to art and the blessing objects. However, it can not be simply summarized as a "religious sacrifice", but also the practice and action of the artist himself.
Consistent with the concept of the work, the artist's thinking is full of contemporary ideas. From the theme and interpretation by the artist himself, it is not difficult to see Jia's unique views on various phenomena in modern society, and his concerns on the nowadays way of life and the future of "human beings". In the face of various constraints and anxieties from reality, Jia also has his own chivalrous dream. As indicated in the "Zhu" of "Freedom Amulet of Yema Palace on the Night of Buddha Ascension", "the spirit is not the body, the body is not the spirit, extend all justice, to achieve the enclave land." Art is an artist's "Enclave" land and where he expects to yearn together with the audience.
The Future of Amulet: The Original Intention of Art
In the process of creating an artwork, artists often come up with a lot of original intentions, just like mothers have expectations for their children. But artists may also face the reality, that is, art is art itself, thus it is difficult to bear so much hope for reality. In Jia Hongjun's artistic practice, by appropriating the form of religious "sacrifice", he criticizes the realistic world with a kind of almost apathetic mood, and infinitely longs for a better life in the future. The instinctive yearning of human beings for beauty has lasted for thousands of years. This exhibition can be seen as a modern man's wisdom of meditation after getting rid of the inertia of being raised.
As the curator Gu Yun puts in the foreword of the exhibition, "The purpose of art is story-telling, but there is no fixed format in telling stories. I believe viewers would relate, and share the same mood of irreconciliation and annoyance when reading these paintings. Standing in front of certain works by the artist, you may recall a certain moment of happiness or sadness, thinking or impulse from the past or in the future."
Art is supposed to smash the pleasant appearance and the carefree hypocrisy in order to reach Nirvana and obtain absolute knowledge within the self-transitive pain. This is the blessings of the exhibition and "Zhu Fu" Amulet -the amulet exists between instinct and wisdom, focusing to a common purpose - the intention of art.
The exhibition will held until July 8, 2020.
Media Contact
Dayi Art Net Lianyi (Beijing) Technology Co., Ltd
Jerrold Kar
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SOURCE: Dayi Art Net Lianyi (Beijing) Technology Co., Ltd