Text / Peng Feng
Image production was once the main form of contemporary art. However, with the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence technology, humans have access to more convenient image production techniques, and images quickly become ubiquitous. Images are castrated in the most powerful way possible, forcing art back to more primitive forms and materials.
Artist Li Hongbo Exhibition Site
The intuitiveness and ambiguity of images have given them an advantage in the competition with language. After the language turn in the 20th century, the image turn quickly emerged. However, with the development of text and image technology, the distinction between images and language is no longer important. As long as text can generate images, images can be restored to text. Text and images are both symbolic expressions that can be freely switched between them.
Artist Zhang Xiaodong Exhibition Site
However, as a symbol expression, the image needs to be attached to a certain material, otherwise it cannot be displayed. But materials can be detached from images, materials cannot be restored to images, let alone language. Artificial intelligence can conquer language and then images, but cannot conquer materials. If humans face competition with artificial intelligence, they may still have a chance to win in the field of materials.
After the law of similarity is debunked by image generation technology, humans may have to rely on the law of contact to maintain their humanity, maintaining a certain kind of dark box in an era of complete transparency. In fact, without some form of covert operation, art no longer exists. In this sense, art and witchcraft are closely related.
Artist Luo Lu Exhibition Site
The Concordia Art Gallery has been focusing on materials in art from the very beginning. Ten years ago, the center's opening exhibition "Paper is" showcased a batch of works made of paper. Ten years later, my original intention remains unchanged and I will once again exhibit works made of paper. Unlike media, which only allows images to appear, materials showcase themselves. If we see an image from it, it is also determined by the material. Will contemporary art embrace material thinking after the fatigue of visual thinking? Will there be material rotation after image rotation? Can materials express themselves without the use of text and images? This exhibition and the ten-year persistence of the Joint Art Center have raised questions for us, perhaps the same question has different answers.
July 8, 2025 at Junzhai, Peking University
Artist Li Hongbo Exhibition Site
In the context of contemporary art, the choice of materials often becomes an extension of the artist's concept. Li Hongbo used paper as an ancient medium to subvert the static essence of sculpture art, injecting "flexibility" and "flow" into solidified forms, and constructing a philosophical experiment on visual deception, cultural metaphor, and material awakening. His works are not only a breakthrough in the boundaries of traditional sculpture, but also a dialogue that transcends the artistic logic of the East and the West. The most stunning aspect of his paper carving art is undoubtedly the thorough reconstruction of the physical properties of materials. Drawing inspiration from the honeycomb structure of traditional Chinese paper lanterns, thousands of thin papers are stacked layer by layer using a special adhesive to form paper blocks that combine toughness and elasticity. This structure allows the originally fragile paper to withstand cutting from various tools and stretch infinitely under external forces. A seemingly hard head can be stretched into a ten meter long paper chain, and then restored to its original state, as if endowed with life.
Artist Li Hongbo Exhibition Site
Artist Zhuang Hongyi creates a dazzling sea of colors by stacking originally soft rice paper. He cleverly uses spray painting techniques to allow viewers to experience a completely different world of colors from different angles. When people observe and interpret the world, they always have a specific perspective, and Zhuang Hongyi uses the most direct way to let us truly feel the vast differences in the world from different perspectives.
Zhuang Hongyi's "Flower City Series" is ultimately presented using paper as the best material, and paper is the source of his creative inspiration, which comes from traditional art in Weifang, China. Before the Chinese New Year, Weifang prints a large number of window decorations for window pasting, with patterns mostly featuring roses or peonies. These flowers bloomed like flowers in a specific season's market, leaving an excellent impression on Zhuang Hongyi and becoming a long-lasting memory in his heart.
In 1992, Luo Lu graduated from the Printmaking Department of Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts. In 1997, she graduated from the Minerva Institute of Fine Arts in the Netherlands. In the same year, she held her first solo exhibition at the Lanji De Vrijz Art Gallery in Amsterdam, Netherlands, and gained attention from the art world as soon as she made her debut. During her long years of living in Europe, the collision and integration of different cultures laid a unique foundation for her artistic creation. In Luo Lu's works, one can always feel the interweaving and entanglement of complex emotions. Her coordination between pleasure and pain, darkness and light, is not simply a concatenation, but a profound insight that runs deep into her bones, as if constructing an emotional balance pivot in her works, allowing seemingly opposing emotions to coexist harmoniously here.
She uses thread after thread as a medium, endowing previously lifeless materials with vibrant vitality between the woven warp and weft. The criss crossing lines are like an extension of her inner thoughts, with each stitch hiding a mark of self exploration. The humanistic atmosphere of Europe and the introverted heritage of the East quietly blend together in her weaving, giving her works both delicate emotional warmth and profound artistic conception that transcends cultures, becoming an important way for her to engage in dialogue with the world.
Artist Zhang Xiaodong is the inheritor of the intangible cultural heritage of dragon scale decoration book art. The "thousand page art" he developed, the stacking of paper forms the hidden appearance of scenery. From afar, he observes the myriad of weather and ancient wonders, and up close, the scales overlap, like falling into a dream. The core charm of Thousand Page Art lies in its philosophy of using physical stacking to create visual effects. Zhang Xiaodong uses paper as a blade and stacks as ink to create a unique "2.5 dimensional space", which is referred to as the "resonance of the breath of all things" by Professor Xia Kejun. The unevenness of the paper forms a miniature valley, where light refracts and diffuses, and colors change in brightness and darkness with angle, as if injecting a "dynamic texturing method" into traditional landscapes. The image is no longer a frozen plane, but a carrier that carries the "folds of time". Zhang Xiaodong has found a new creative medium that does not have any Western influence. It is deeply rooted in the roots of Chinese culture, but it is also a globalized language formed on this basis
Zhang Xiaodong takes paper as a boat, carrying us through the intersection of material and spiritual, traditional and future. His thousand page art questions in every cutting and stacking: What is eternity? When the Dunhuang smoke and clouds carried by Xuan paper breathe in the exhibition hall, and when the joys and sorrows of "Dream of the Red Chamber" are resurrected in the scales, the answer is self-evident. Eternity is not an immortal specimen, but a rhythm that injects the genes of civilization into new media.
Curator Peng Feng
Peng Feng is currently the Dean of the School of Art at Peking University, the Dean of the Peking University Opera Research Institute, and the Dean of the Chinese Painting Research Institute at Peking University. He also serves as the convener of the Art Theory Discipline Evaluation Group of the State Council Academic Degrees Committee, the Secretary General of the Teaching Guidance Committee for Undergraduate Art Theory Majors in Higher Education Institutions under the Ministry of Education, the Vice President of the International Aesthetics Association, the Vice President of the Chinese Society of Aesthetics, a member of the Chinese Literary Critics Association, and a member of the Chinese Artists Association. Published multiple monographs, textbooks, and collections, planned over 100 art exhibitions, and wrote scripts for musicals, plays, ballets, films, and more.
As of today, the English name of the "Common Art Center" has been officially changed to Concordia Art Gallery.
This renaming is not only a comprehensive upgrade of our brand image, but also a continuation of our ten-year development journey and the opening of a new stage. Concordia "means" harmony "and" consensus ", continuing the spirit of" commonality "as the core concept, reflecting our original intention and vision of continuously promoting the contemporary transformation of traditional Chinese techniques, dialogue with diverse cultures, and assisting in the innovation, co construction, and sharing of contemporary Chinese art.
Over the past decade, we have come together because of a common philosophy, connected by a common platform, and moved forward because of a common set of values. In the future, Concordia Art Gallery will continue to uphold the spirit of openness, diversity, and innovation, working together with artists, collectors, and audiences around the world to expand the boundaries and possibilities of art.
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Common Art Center, 707-b03 Hongshi Square, No.2 Jiuxianqiao Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing, China
