‘Emergency Landing’
Several Chinese artists are exhibiting their contemporary works in the “Emergency Landing” exhibitions at the Jupiter Museum of Art in Futian District.
Mass culture and consumerism are familiar territories to artist Wang Jianuo. Popular cartoon figures can be found in his paintings and sculptures. He stands out through his fantastic landscapes in vibrant colors, creating a dreamlike and poetic universe. When Wang depicts his world with passion, the common aspects are often “joyful, colorful, pop, modern and emotional.” This is where the real beauty lies: Inspire a great deal of optimism into life and please others.
Artist Zhao Xiaoli with her painting. Photos from Jupiter Museum of Art’s WeChat account
“One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” This is a well-known phrase but for painter Zhao Xiaoli it is also a guide to her professional life. She makes art out of garbage. A variety of recycled objects, including a wooden door, a chair with one leg missing, an old television, a discarded washboard, a broken guitar, plastic bottles and a vintage thermos flask, have provided a canvas of inspiration for Zhao.
For Zhao, it seems that anything can be her canvas. With her “magic pen,” a vintage wooden laundry washboard can be the perfect “canvas” for a landscape oil painting. “Art should serve the public, which needs us to think outside the box. Through the medium of art, used items can be redefined,” says the 30-year-old painter.
Artist Shi Jinsong pontificates on the contemporary state through his mixed media installations and sculptures that draw on traditional aesthetics. His seminal body of stainless steel work consists of parodies of objects associated with comfort and nurture — baby carriages, a child’s rattle — menacingly crafted with razor-sharp blades. Shi maintains a dialogue that juxtaposes globalization and consumerism with mythic cultures from the past, often diffusing the conversation with a jocular sensibility.
Dates: Until Dec. 13
Tickets: 88 yuan per person, 138 yuan for two people, 58 yuan for students, seniors, soldiers, the disabled and children in height between 1.2 meters and 1.5 meters, free for children shorter than 1.2 meters
‘Acting Cute Is Toxic’
For those familiar with Zhang Tianmu’s creative output, her recent works have displayed a surprising and unexpected direction: Those dreamy, symbolic girls of hers are no longer visible, while the grass, flowers, birds and beasts which originally played supplementary roles in her paintings have become the main characters. However, the original meticulously maintained sweet and pleasant atmosphere — that of a girly “scarlet dreamscape” — has dissipated, while the sense of the eerie, deficient, and uncertain are what shrouds the picture plane.
Zhang has not used painting to intervene into a sociological critique of values, but rather placed herself within the process of painting, naturally and spontaneously facing the relationship between painting and the self, and that between the self and social life.
A painting by Zhang Tianmu.
Dates: Until Jan. 3, 2021
Tickets: 58 yuan per person, 108 yuan for two people, 39 yuan for students, free for children shorter than 1.2 meters
‘The Imagination of Finger and Paper: The Little World in Books’
Handmade pop-up books created by artists and local primary school students are on display.
Dates: Until Dec. 13
Tickets: Free
Hours: 10 a.m.-6 p.m., closed Mondays
A pop-up book on display at “The Imagination of Finger and Paper.”
Venue: Jupiter Museum of Art, 6 Lanhua Road, Futian District (福田区蓝花道6号木星美术馆)
Metro: Line 3 to Futian Bonded Area Station (福保站), Exit B