Exhibition SiteReclaiming the Rubble and the Gems
Text / Feng Xi
At dusk, there is no obstacle for ordinary people to come out of the world. The rubble shines like pearls and jade, and the general does not use it to drive away the border soldiers - "Endless Repetition" by Shi Zhongxian, Song Dynasty
Waking up the dream in the morning, the light slowly comes. Looking north, the dots, lines, and surfaces of the tall building are habitually immersed in the sunlight, and life and labor continue from there. On a quiet surface, the sparrow bent down and crawled into the only remaining gap between the air conditioning condenser pipe and the wall opening, filling the weeds in its mouth into the cramped space and slowly building its own "home". Not far away, a flock of fluttering pigeons flew by, and a lone carrier pigeon rested on the roof of the pigeon house for a moment. The "home" was transformed from a large anti-theft window, grand and fashionable, standing on the same side of the wall and in time with the labor and happiness of sparrows in the midst of adversity.
Partial Works
Zhang Mu is like a lone sparrow, guarding the increasingly narrow space to build a "shabby room" for painting, and the "building materials" constantly switch between clear and uncertain definitions of existence. Since graduating from Sichuan Conservatory of Music in 2007, I have experienced self doubt about the homogenization of contemporary creators, as well as the practice of localizing the visuals. After winning the award, I have developed a stronger sense of denial and abandonment. Today's Zhang Mu regards art history as a field investigation site for collecting "language" samples, re approaching the "language" cases of modernism and postmodernism, extracting the "language" factors that already exist in art such as concepts, logic, intentions, techniques, and media texture, and using "painting practice" as a "field style" analysis and research method to re-establish the mutually generated and interdependent textual relationships between them. Zhang Mu's paintings emit "diverse faces" after the reshaping of "language". At the same time, the transformation of differentiated "language components" into a picture, how to find the process from mutual conflict to natural reconciliation, rebuild the relationship of the language system, has become Zhang Mu's constant switching between learning and creation. It seems that the most primitive question squeezed out of the constantly changing folds of time in art history is: first, 'What do you paint?'? And then there's' how to draw '? In today's world where image results conquer everything, thoughts and paths about language seem to have become the most overlooked rubble, lying in inconspicuous corners. Zhang Mu hopes to become a "clumsy" person, and the study and reconstruction of art history will allow him to pick up the rubble that he sees as a gem in his eyes, and use his own body temperature to radiate the precious luster in his heart, even if it is weak or only visible to himself.
Crossing This River, 120x150cm, Oil on Canvas, 2023
Reclaiming the Rubble and the Gems
Opening Ceremony Scene
Exhibition Site
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On the afternoon of March 1, 2025, the Common Art Center will launch a solo exhibition by artist Zhang Mu titled "Reclaiming the Rubble and the Gems". This exhibition is planned by curator Feng Xi and will present multiple series of works created by artist Zhang Mu between 2020 and 2024. The exhibition will plan three narrative spaces that are closely related to different language practice directions, while forming three independent and intertwined spatial themes: "Roof and Foundation in Variations", "Imagination and Simulation of Daily Practice", and "The Center of the River and the Mountain in the Heart". The exhibition will last until April.
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The Roof and Foundation in Variations
Anxi Guangsha has millions of rooms, providing shelter for all the cold scholars in the world with joyful faces, and remains as calm as mountains in the face of wind and rain. - "The Song of the Thatched Cottage Broken by Autumn Wind " by Du Fu in the Tang Dynasty
The shaping of time and space is related, and the length of time is also cut into uneven thickness and length by the space squeezed by reality. Sometimes it appears linear, repeating a unified pace, full of carefree comfort. However, more space presents uneven shapes, wandering through various strange experiences, subjective rejection and objective acceptance, bumping into the body in batches, smiling after frowning, striving to hide the explicit or metaphorical meanings given by life.
Partial WorksIn 2011, Zhang Mu was invited to participate in the New Star Art Festival. Standing in the exhibition hall in Shanghai, facing a vast array of works like stars, he suddenly felt lost. His direction of painting thinking was almost the same as that of his peers, and the entire exhibition hall was filled with a sense of convergence. This trip had a huge stimulation and reflection on Zhang Mu, and he began to doubt the reasons for painting, which led to questioning and confusion about himself, starting from 'what to paint'? How to draw? How to express it further? Always lingering in my heart, unable to shake off. Meanwhile, how to become the 'me' of today has become a new question. Once by chance, Zhang Mu saw Liu Xiaodong's interview program and asked the question of the painter's "first sip of milk". At this moment, he seemed to be hit by this sentence and kept asking himself, "What is my first sip of milk?
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Zhang Mu gave up his previous painting methods and paths, and began to relearn and understand artists such as Marcel Duchamp, Jasper Jones, Rene Magritte, Mark Tansy, Robert Lehmann, Barnett Newman, etc. Through monographs and articles written from different perspectives, he gradually formed a new understanding of language and grammar. The exploration from 2011 to 2013 brought about a huge cognitive change in Zhang Mu's understanding of painting.
Exhibition SiteZhang Mu arranged the visual elements into three sequences: language, symbols, and images. The identical composition removed the structural traction brought by narrative and fixed the language in a simplified style. This gave rise to the "Tune Changing Practice" series of works. The mountain and water face each other horizontally, strictly cut by the horizon. Each image is composed of six completely different languages, and the language links extracted from the axis of Eastern and Western art history provide clear "identities" and sources. Under different tones, colors not only increase the dynamics and rhythm of the image, but also amplify the changes in the texture of light. The square structures of different sizes, combined with reduced transparency, emphasize the dimension of visual spatial stretching. In 2018, Zhang Mu returned to his hometown in Sichuan to build his dream studio. After the main structure of the building was completed, he was unable to continue construction and decoration due to various reasons. This ideal building, with its four walls hollowed out, remains unused to this day. He began to incorporate different buildings into the language of painting in simplified form as symbols of feedback in reality. The emergence of architecture has increased the possibility of reading, from the narrow cube of Black Mountain College to the towering structure of Mark Roscoe Church; From Le Corbusier's cabin to the personal memorial hall built by architect Liu Jiakun for Hu Huishan, who died in the Wenchuan earthquake.
Exhibition SiteThe progress of the "Tune Changing Exercises" is like the foundation solidified by Zhang Mu's painting "New Life", gradually building the appearance of the "Seven Sons of Qiao Yin" series of works. The prototype of "The Seven Sons of Qiao Yin" began before the conception of "Tune Changing Exercises" and temporarily stopped at the prototype, like a faintly visible roof in the distance, waiting for its foundation to emerge and quickly rise from the ground. The exhibition uses scenery to construct a roof that crawls on the ground based on the reference of "The Seven Sons of Qiao Yin", and a series of "Tune Changing Exercises" hanging on the wall, forming a visual contrast between the foundation and the roof.
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Imagination and Simulation of Daily Exercises
The method of reading is to read gradually and systematically, to read thoroughly and think deeply. - "The Essentials of Reading" by Zhu Xi during the Song Dynasty
Starting from 2016, Zhang Mu began to feel the narrative nature of images as a challenge to his creativity. He consciously abandoned the subject of painting and gradually regarded painting as an exercise in language decomposition and reconstruction. He began to seek the meaning of "language" in artistic expression through learning. So, the breakdown of language became Zhang Mu's habitual daily practice method, returning to the starting point of observation, picking out the artist's methods and language components, and treating them as objects of practice or even simulation, tirelessly practicing.
Exhibition SitePractice is not monotonous repetition, but simulating the desired state of language objects. For example, using Mark Rothko as the starting point of language and Robert Lehmann's white brushstrokes, covering typical Rothko style color blocks, to find the balance and constraint relationship between the two, or the discordant factors. Next, we will apply Roscoe style composition and color conventions to reconstruct a sketch of the beach. In the third scene of Roscoe's composition, the seaside depicted by Alex Katz is completely replaced by color flattening, rendering it devoid of narrative function and logic. And so on, from the evolution of color blocks into the relationship of lines, to the deduction of descriptions of light, shadow, and spectrum.
Exhibition SiteThere is also a similar practice in the way of thinking in Chinese painting, with a greater degree of integration between the East and the West. From the enlargement of a calligraphy section on the well, to the concept of using characters in Jasper Jones' paintings; From the intention of imitating Barnett Newman's works to be similar to the house leak mark, to the combination of Lehmann's white painting and Chinese painting lines; From the static fluctuations of Ma Yuanshui's painting to the charm of black and white woodcut lines.
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Zhang Mu's imagination and simulation of language practice are constantly generated through several relatively complete language deductions. In his view, this is not just a process of collecting language, but a method of systematically re understanding the language of painting. The purpose of such work is not to improve the deduction itself, but to once again respond to one's own questions about "what to draw" and "how to draw". Zhang Mu's practice has formed an archive style storage sample, gradually entering the work of archiving, filing, and organizing. Seemingly familiar methods and descriptive objects generate new grammatical structures in the reconstruction of language. In art history, language is visually and textually sorted through imaginative and simulated behaviors, while completing the preparation for phased painting.
The center of the river and the mountain in the heart
Water is like waves in the eyes, mountains are like peaks in the eyebrows. Where should pedestrians go? The forehead and eyes are full of radiance. - "Bu Suanzi: Sending Bao Haoran to Zhejiang East" by Wang Guan from the Song Dynasty
Based on the theme of mountains and waters, it originated from Zhang Mu's accidental acquisition while studying at Sichuan Conservatory of Music. While wandering around a book stall outside the school, he bought a picture book of mountains and waters from the Song and Yuan dynasties of the Five Dynasties, and was instantly shocked by the works in it. In 2008, during his trip to Mount Siguniang after graduation, the dense cedar trees on both sides also inspired his imagination of mountains and waters. Returning to Chengdu, using the light sensing technique in classical oil painting, I attempted for the first time to imitate the intention expressed by Chinese painting techniques by blending thin colors and hard brushing techniques.
Exhibition SiteIn 2014, Zhang Mu began to experiment with symmetrical composition in his paintings, abandoning human elements and compressing narrative elements into concrete scenes pieced together in different language forms. In 2017, during an exhibition at Suzhou Museum, the dry landscape designed by Mr. I.M. Pei in the courtyard aroused Zhang Mu's strong interest. Looking at the stacked mountains from the front, it created a space that blends reality and non reality, while presenting abstract lines as thin as paper on the side. In an instant, it is the artistic conception of 'looking horizontally at the mountains and forming peaks on the sides'. Inspired, Zhang Mu began to arrange according to the language summarized in art history and in chronological order, completing the prototype of the "Seven Sons of Xie Yin" series.
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In 2018, Zhang Mu returned to his hometown to build his ideal studio. The immersion surrounded by green mountains and waters allowed Zhang Mu to rediscover the natural landscape and its natural beauty, and questioned the rigidly pieced together "Seven Sons of Qiao Yin". In the end, after completing the main building, the studio returned to Beijing to continue painting. By chance, the concept of landscape and architecture echoing in the horizontal confrontation scene was formed. At the same time, through the establishment of long-term "textualization" through "daily practice", the landscape structure of the "Seven Sons of Qiao Yin" series began.
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The composition of horizontal confrontation between mountains and waters has become the cornerstone of Zhang Mu's paintings in recent years. The 'Canopy Boat Canopy' series expresses respect for Simon Starling's work 'Canopy Boat Canopy House' within its basic paradigm. Unlike Stalin's concept, the results presented in painting are limited to the state of the image and do not have direct bodily movements and processes. Zhang Mu has a clear understanding of this, and he replaces the artist's intuition and emotions with almost mechanized painting forms in the process of forming ideas.
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Perhaps such behavior itself already carries the reflection of 'feeding tigers with one's own body'. Over the course of several years, the process of creating "language" itself has become the process of studying "language". Simulation and deduction have advanced to another attitude of creation. Just like the winding and long paths in the "Path of Progress" series displayed at the end of the exhibition. The easels appearing at the top of the two images are upright as before. The other one fell with the wind.
Partial Works
As an amateur planner hovering on the edge of the system, Feng Xi has a consciousness and practice that differs from mainstream curatorial ideas and methods. He is good at deconstructing the physical properties of space, attempting to transform a new exhibition language between space and works, integrating it into the exhibition context and reshaping its relationship with reality, and striving to master the understanding and output of the contextual relationship between exhibitions, making exhibitions independent of aesthetic exhibition logic and broadening the channels for understanding exhibition language and presentation methods. At the same time, as an independent art space practitioner, he has served as the Art Director of Diplomatic Apartment No.12, the Director of Shelter Experimental Space, and the Exhibition Director of Garage Experimental Space. The artistic directors of art institutions such as the One Way Gallery, Morning Gallery, and Huaigulin Contemporary Art Center, as well as the exhibition director of the "Siphon Project" under the SIMULACRA Portrait Gallery. And I was fortunate enough to become an academic committee member and researcher of the "Zhao Wenliang Yang Yushu Art Center" under the Intermediate Art Foundation. In addition, in 2017, I joined the planning and practice group, Jue Xie Society, as an intermediary between curators and artists, using exhibitions as a method of creation and practice, and became one of the three members of the group.
Opening Ceremony
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