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Block 

Cai Lei

Curated by Sui Jianguo

09.05 - 10.18, 2020  ( Extended to 10.24 ) 

Beijing  2nd Space

Tang Contemporary Art is proud to present the opening of “Block,” a solo show for Cai Lei featuring work from 2020, in the gallery’s second Beijing space on September 5, 2020. The Curator of the show is Sui Jianguo, and the academic director is Zhan Wang.

 

In forms ranging from relief images with a compressed perspective to assemblages of objects that create visual dislocations and tensions to interior landscaped installations, Cai Lei’s diverse practice has shifted from personal creative methods to linguistic patterns to artistic concepts. “Block,” the theme that he has chosen to explore due to the pandemic, represents a new direction in his work, namely, perceptions of everyday narratives and bodily experiences.

 

 

Block

Sui Jianguo

 

Several years ago, Cai Lei held three solo exhibitions in three years: “Method of Descent” (2014), “In Ambiguous Sight” (2015), and “Échelle des Plans” (2016). In that span, he shifted from relief images with a compressed perspective to assemblages of objects that create visual dislocations and tensions to landscaped interior installations. With this hop, skip, and a jump, he shifted from personal creative methods to linguistic patterns to artistic concepts. In his rapid leaps between the three, he has quickly grown into an eye-catching young artist.

 

Planning for the current exhibition began at the end of last year, but the coronavirus outbreak just before Chinese New Year changed Cai Lei’s work and its direction. This exhibition is presented in three interconnected spaces. The four walls of the first exhibition space show the kind of work for which Cai Lei is known: rooms and corridors presented with compressed perspective. What is different this time is that the perspectival rooms and corridors are compressed from the front and back, then compressed again from the left and right, changing the way we look at them and emphasizing the psychological influence of space. Here, Cai Lei has advanced his original perspective work.

 

However, the theme of perspective disappears almost entirely from the works displayed in the second and third spaces. The beds that recede into the wall using perspective appear on the primary wall in the second gallery, but they are no longer as meticulously arranged as the works in the first gallery.

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Works
Beyond Freedom 191229

Beyond Freedom 191229

Bronze 91 x 70 x 162 cm 2019

Block One

Block One

Concrete, steel structure 58.5 x 40 x 232 cm 2020

Over Under 20200825

Over Under 20200825

Bronze 109 x 55 x 1 cm 2020

Over Under 20200823

Over Under 20200823

Bronze 110 x 50 x 1 cm 2020

Over Under 20200815

Over Under 20200815

Bronze 102 x 54 x 1 cm 2020

Over Under 20200801

Over Under 20200801

Bronze 101 x 55 x 1 cm 2020

Over Under 20200718

Over Under 20200718

Bronze, 24K gold leaf on a concrete base 166 x 34 x 16 cm 2020

Block Three

Block Three

Bronze, 24K gold leaf on a concrete base 55 x 46 x 320 cm 2020

Unfinished Home 20200425

Unfinished Home 20200425

Concrete, steel structure 88 x 28.5 x 119 cm 2020

Unfinished Home 20200820

Unfinished Home 20200820

Cement 180 x 30 x 5 cm 2020

Pass Through 202003

Pass Through 202003

Acrylic on canvas, steel 200 x 90 x 9 cm 2020

Pass Through 202005

Pass Through 202005

Acrylic on canvas, steel 200 x 175 x 10.5 cm 2020

Beyond Gold 20200303

Beyond Gold 20200303

Bronze, 24K gold leaf on a concrete base 42 x 34 x 85.5 cm 2020

Block Two

Block Two

Concrete, steel structure 29.6 x 19.6 x 215 cm 2020

0101#

0101#

Acrylic on canvas 180 x 98.5 x 20 cm 2020

0103#

0103#

Acrylic on canvas 150 x 63 x 4 cm 2020

Over Under 20200901

Over Under 20200901

Bronze, 24K gold leaf on a concrete base 104 x 54 x 1 cm 2020

0102#

0102#

Acrylic on canvas 180 x 152 x 5 cm 2020

Artist
Artist
艺术家照片.jpeg

Cai Lei

b.1983 in Changchun, Jilin province, China.

 

Cai Lei’s works explore the relationship between illusion and space. From his interest in planarity, he carves out an illusory conceptual space which oscillates between the second and third dimension for his creations. Working in both painting and mixed media sculptural relief, light plays an important factor in enhancing this illusion of depth. Painted spaces of interior hallways or corners simultaneously protrude and recede depending on the viewer’s experience of the work.


Cai Lei graduated in 2009 with a Bachelor’s Degree in Sculpture at the China Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) in Beijing. An award winning young artist from the 80s generation, he has exhibited internationally including the Yangtze Art Museum (Chongqing), Foundation Taylor (Paris), Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts (Taiwan), CAFA Museum (Beijing), Poly Art Museum (Beijing), Jacksonville Museum of Contemporary Art (USA), Today Art Museum (Beijing), and Museum of Contemporary Art Bonn (Germany). His solo exhibitions experience: “23 Square Meters”(2018), Whitestone Gallery, Taiwan; “Échelle des plans”(2016), Tang Contemporary Art, Beijing; “In Ambiguous Sight, Unaccompanied”(2016), Tang Contemporary Art, Hong Kong, China; Group Exhibitions: “Motif and material”(2017), Tang Contemporary Art, Hong Kong; “Among”(2015), Museum of Contemporary Art Bonn, Germany; CAFA Postgraduates Graduate Exhibition”(2015), CAFA Museum, Beijing, China.

Curator
隋建国.jpeg

Sui Jianguo

b. 1956 in Qingdao, Shandong province, China.

Sui Jianguo received a BA in the Fine Arts Department from the Shandong University of Arts in 1984 and an MA in the Sculpture Department from the China Central Academy of Fine Arts in 1989, where he is a professor in the Sculpture Department.

Sui Jianguo's art explores his unique understanding and recognition of creation, form, alternative media, alternative methods, and space-time for 30 years. He has participated in many group and solo exhibitions .

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