From 5 March to 23 April 2022, Jupiter Museum of Art presents LiBiao Peng The Confrontation and Dissolution, a solo exhibition of LiBiao Peng. The exhibition presents representative works of the artist from several periods in recent years, as well as key points in his artistic career. The opening of the exhibition is held on 5 March at 3pm at the Jupiter Museum of Art.
Author | Jun Jiang
Wood has been the fundamental material for the construction of Chinese domestic space since ancient times. Various woods, different workmanship, unique mortise-tenon connection, carved beams and pavilions and so on, create a continuous symbolic space. The exquisite wood carvings are embedded in people's daily life in the form of architectural components, carrying an auspicious symbolism or a moral tale. As visible images, they guard the occupants of the houses from disasters, diseases, evil spirits, bad luck, and the disorder of human morality.
Nowadays, these spatial symbols are fading from our perception of the habitat and have become a kind of cultural nostalgia. After almost half a century of industrialization and urbanization, the wooden structure has been replaced by armored concrete and glass fibre concrete urban jungles. We live in a geometric space that has been demystified and homogenised, and as the philosopher Heidegger said, heaven, earth, man and God have already dissipated. A large number of beautifully carved wooden architectural elements have become harmless accents in contemporary interiors after the collapse of old houses, calling up the ghosts of the past in the cracks of modernism.
For artist Libiao Peng, his hometown in the ancient town of Jiangxi and the young metropolis of Shenzhen constitute the two poles of his domestic space, constantly confronting and dissolving each other between the past and the future, tradition and modernity. He chooses wood as the material for his sculptures, on one hand borrowing the carved wooden elements of ancient Chinese architecture, using 'localisation' to allude to the missing architectural space and refer to the fractured traditions under radical modernisation. On the other hand, the artist subtly incorporates Pop Art, which represents Western materialism and liberalism, especially inspired by the German artist Stephan Balkenhol. The new and the old, the Chinese and the foreign, traditional folklore and contemporary fashion converge, and under the same form they clash and dissolve, creating the artist's unique spatial symbolism under the dynamic tension of a dual system of significance.
About the artist
Libiao Peng
Born in 1987, he now lives and works in Shenzhen. Graduated from the Sculpture Department of Xi'an Academy of Fine Arts in 2009. He is devoted to exploring more possibilities of sculptural ontology and material conceptualization.
About academic moderator
Jun Jiang
Dr Jun Jiang is an art historian, curator and art critic, a PhD in architecture from Tongji University and a columnist for Phoenix Art, living and working in Shanghai and Hangzhou.
About the curator
Guanheng Chen
Guanheng Chen, graduated from the Printmaking Department of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, is a young curator and currently the curatorial director of Jupiter Museum of Art in Shenzhen
Exhibition information
Time
2022.3.5 — 2022.4.23
Location
Jupiter Museum of Art
No.6 Lanhua Road, Futian District, Shenzhen
Academic Moderator
Jun Jiang
Curator
Guanheng Chen
Producer
Hongrong Lv
Co-sponsor
WITHDESIGN