Chen Xiao&Li Zhenhua Solo Exhibition

Solo exhibitions of two artist, Chen Xiao and Li Zhenhua, will be launched at A Thousand Plateaus Art Space on October 15, 2016, which respectively are “The Last Night” of Chen Xiao and “Lost Horizon” of Li Zhenhua. They will present their new media works in the same exhibition space following the venation of their creation and reflection, and explore new perceptions through colliding with each other on different themes in the same space.

Chen Xiao's creation often comes from his own travel experiences and knowledge. He transforms the feelings from each trips into a series of works and constitute a whole display project. In such projects, his work extends to the physical geography, history, mythology, culture, and society, as well as the relationship between these and his individual thinking and experience as an "outsider", and ultimately return to explore the existence of self, the life, the cultural identity, and the possible association with art creation. This time his solo exhibition "The Last Night" comes from the honeymoon trip with his wife in Cuba. The desire to travel comes from Wim Wenders’s documentary, "Buena Vista Social Club", which through music expresses the Cuban style and the original life emotions hidden deep in the modern world. With this as his initial imagination, Chen Xiao witnessed the local customs in Cuba, and he found a kind of eternal beauty linked to nature, while progressive development of the capital culture in local. His different works in the form of video, photography, installation, etc., constitute a complete space field which combines with literature and meditation to show the interpenetration of abundant perceptions, making the exhibition hall into the reappearance of his inner impression and contemplation of Cuba. The space contains longing, experience, gaze, and worry; through these outward mapping, inner-self is being explored, and this process will be integrated with viewing experience of audience.

With his rich and in-depth artistic practice, Li Zhenhua has worked across curatorial and creative fields. His entry point of creating usually is the generation and transmission of perception and knowledge and the relationships of daily life, society, history, cultural change in the state of post - modern history and society. His work often creates a path of reflection and feeling in interrelationships. The exhibition, “Lost Horizon”, was influenced by the novel of the same name by British writer James Hilton, inspired by the fictional utopia in a Tibetan mountain as described in the novel; "Shangri-la" is a place name derived from this novel and afterwards several places in the real world, such as Zhongdian County, has changed to “Shangri-la”. In Li Zhenhua's eyes, this novel is not about the desire of mystery or escape from reality, but something more abstract and essential – to search and confirm the existence or feeling which is existed but beyond the world, which is usually beclouded. Therefore, his work is about "lose" and "seek". The material form of the work is included in a simple pdf file, the audience can follow the document to interact with it. In this process, knowledge and imagination become clues, and what is been looking for maybe not "the distance" but “the miracle" in daily life, like the beauty prompted by light or dust. Li Zhenhua and Chen Xiao's work echo on their themes, and ultimately attribute to the inner exploration and sublimation.

千高原艺术空间将于2016年10月15日推出陈霄和李振华两位艺术家的个展项目，分别是陈霄的“最后一夜”，以及李振华的“消失的地平线”。两人将在同一个展示空间内呈现各自创作和思考脉络下的新媒体作品，并探索两人的不同主题在同一个空间相互碰撞后，即将生发的新的感知。

陈霄的创作时常以自己的旅行经历和见闻为出发点，将每次旅行触发的感受转变为一系列的作品，并构成一个整体的展示项目。在这样的项目中，他的作品会延伸至旅行地点的自然地理，历史，神话，文化，社会等内涵，以及它们与自己作为“外来者”的个体思考与体验的关系，最终回到对自我的存在，生活，文化身份，及其与艺术创作之可能存在的各种关联的探索。他本次展出的个人项目“最后一夜”就来自和妻子在古巴的蜜月旅行。旅行的愿望来自门德斯的纪录片“乐满哈瓦那”，这部影片通过音乐表现了古巴风情，和藏于现代世界深处的，原始的生命情感。陈霄以此为最初的想象，在古巴亲眼见证了那里的风土人情，发现了一种与自然相连的永恒美好，同时用敏锐的目光发现了资本文化在本地的逐渐发展。他的不同作品以影像，摄影，装置等形式，构成了一个完整的，结合了文学与冥思的空间场域，从各个角度表现了这些丰富而互相穿插的感知，将展厅变成了他对古巴的内心印象与沉思的再现。空间中包含了向往，体验，凝视，和担忧；透过这些向外的映射，是对自我内心的探索，而这一过程将与观众的观展体验融为一体。

李振华以其丰富而深入的艺术实践，跨越了策展和创作两个领域。他的创作切入点常常是在后现代的历史和社会状态下，人的感知或知识的产生和传递，及其与日常生活，社会，历史，文化变迁的关系。他的作品常常在相互的关联中营造思考和感受的路径。展出项目“消失的地平线”受到英国作家詹姆斯.希尔顿的同名小说影响，灵感来自小说所描述的，一个虚构的西藏高山中的乌托邦；“香格里拉”就源自这一小说中的地名，而后，现实世界中的几个地点，比如中甸县，才改为这个名字。在李振华眼中，这部小说不是关于对神秘的向往或对现实的逃避，而是更加抽象而本质的，对一种存在于世间，却又超然于世界，同时又时常被蒙蔽的存在或者感受的寻找和确认。因此，他的展出作品是关于“丢失”和“寻找”的，作品的物质形式被包含在简单的pdf文件中，观众可以根据文件的指引与其互动。在这一过程中，知识或想象都成为一种线索，而寻找到的也许不是“远方”，而是日常生活中的“奇迹”，就像光线或灰尘所提示的美好那样。李振华与陈霄的作品在主题上遥相呼应，而最终都归于自我内心的探索或升华。