Artist Zhang Quan’s personal exhibition “Rockery” officially opened this week at Wuhan Art Museum (Qintai Pavilion). In naming each exhibition, Zhang Quan has continued his tradition and faced the works with a sincere attitude. “Rockery” is another extension of the artist’s consistent narrative, and it is also a breakthrough in personal expression.
This creation combines oriental aesthetic meaning and modern deconstruction form, trying to interpret the inherent aesthetic paradigm from a more novel perspective. A number of sculptures and paintings are on display. The artist uses bonsai, rockery, classic KARORO and other images to express his views on the current social landscape environment through different tampering methods. Perhaps in the unpredictable real life, the boundary between reality and falsehood has long been blurred. How to find one’s own foothold is a problem and challenge that everyone will face.
As Zhang Quan’s largest solo exhibition to date, we also took the opportunity to invite him to personally reveal the interesting things behind this exhibition. This exhibition will last until the end of December 3. Everyone is welcome to visit the site. .
Hypebeast: As the largest exhibition since you graduated from college, how long did it take to prepare for “FAKE FAKE MOUNTAIN”? What is the biggest difficulty encountered behind this?
Zhang Quan:In March this year, we received a brief from Wuhan Art Museum. We have been preparing for this exhibition for nearly half a year. The difficulties encountered are that we have never actually operated such a large venue before, and the total area of this exhibition is nearly 6,000 square meters; the second is that we need to reorganize and present the works we have done in the past few years, which is also a reflection on ourselves. challenges and breakthroughs.
Starting from your hometown of Nanjing, KARORO has accompanied you through many cities. Is there any different experience in Wuhan this time than before? What is the biggest impression this city has left on you?
In my opinion, the two cities of Nanjing and Wuhan have many similarities. For example, they are both provincial capitals and have rich urban resources; they are both located on the riverside and have a comfortable climate, etc. Wuhan Art Museum gave us a very good opportunity to express our creations. Through these two days of on-site opening activities, I felt the enthusiasm and love of young people in Wuhan for art exhibitions.
It has been more than ten years since KARORO was born. From the initial manuscript to now it has derived different artistic forms. What possibilities do you think this image has in the future? Or what is your biggest expectation for it?
KARORO’s future should be multi-faceted and three-dimensional, and he should continue to output the content he wants to deliver to everyone. This content must be interesting, cute and powerful. I hope he gets better and better and can be loved by everyone all the time.
We saw that there were some fans at the exhibition who came from out of town to see this exhibition. Is there any story behind this that impressed you that you would like to share with everyone? What is your perception of this?
What impressed me deeply was a girl who rode a motorcycle from Guizhou to Wuhan to see my exhibition. She told me that she had ridden 1,200 kilometers in total, which I thought was really cool. Another friend brought many pairs of Melting Sadness sneakers to the venue for me to sign for him. In my opinion, it is very meaningful that people like the stories I create and want to know more about the stories behind them.
We saw many brand-new works in this exhibition. Can you introduce them to you?
The main thing I want to do in this exhibition is to show you part of the Chinese-style amusement park. I chose more rockeries and bonsai to present this content. At the same time, this is also a reorganization of the amusement park in the past ten years. I want to go Prove that you are a Chinese artist and want everyone to see an amusement park that belongs to China.
Are there any new projects underway this year? Can you tell us some information?
We still need to stick to our original aspirations and continue to create more high-quality content for “Amusement Park”. If it is possible in the future, if you want to build your own amusement park in a certain city, you can look forward to it with us.
Zhang Quan’s “FAKE FAKE MOUNTAIN” solo exhibition
Time: September 26 – December 3, 2023
Address: A&B Exhibition Hall of Wuhan Art Museum (Qintai Hall), No. 77 Zhiyin Avenue, Hanyang District, Wuhan City, Hubei Province
