Yun-Fei Ji

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人鬼巴东 ——季云飞个展

2010年7月3日至8月29日 开幕酒会：2010年7月3日，周六，晚6-8点

上海James Cohan画廊将于2010年7月3日至8月29日展出《人鬼巴东》。该展览系旅美艺术家季云飞近二十年里首个国内个展。作为年初颇受好评的纽约个展的延续，此次的上海展览汇集了艺术家一批最新创作的纸本绘画以及近期重要的版画项目——受纽约现代美术馆之邀创作的长达十米的长卷《三峡库区移民图》。

季云飞1963年生于北京。幼年便同其父母分开，而随祖父母居住于杭州郊外的集体农场里。在没有电视和电台的乡野，儿时的季云飞聊以解闷的是祖母讲述的鬼故事和民间传说；而祖父则将其领进了书法的天地。在就读中央美术学院时期，他研习传统绘画技艺，对宋代绘画抱以极大的热忱。大学时期，他的不少老师都于1950年代在苏联受过美术训练，中国传统艺术于那个年代既不时髦也不激进。"读画如读诗"一名电影服装灯光师当时留给季云飞的一句话深深印刻进了艺术家心里。1986年，他获得阿肯色州大学富尔布莱特学院奖学金西渡美国，在那里他找了自己的创作方向──再造中国传统绘画中的象征图像与结构系统，以之探索当代生活里工业发展的种种后果。他说："我用山水画来探求中国历史中的乌托邦理想，从过去的集体主义到新消费主义。"

在其新作中，季云飞仍旧借古喻今，不断回溯儿时听闻的民间传说，探究如《聊斋志异》等经典古籍。以这些故事为灵感，季云飞笔下的飞禽走兽、乱神怪力批判了腐朽、歪邪与贪婪。近期，他又以法国萨德侯爵的文学作品为缪斯，以其故事里的腐朽为基础勾勒出两条平行的线索，一方面贵族自甘淫乱堕落，另一方面却期望大众自我牺牲。在萨德的名著里季云飞找到了一种隐喻和预言，其直指行为有悖于传统哲学道德准则的权贵。

《人鬼巴东》还将展出纽约现代美术馆图书馆委员会出版的季云飞长卷版画《三峡库区移民图》。该作品从一侧面再现了艺术家致力于三峡工程带来的关乎社会以及大众心理的话题。这件约十米的作品徐徐铺陈开一段段来自三峡地区的民间故事。在《纽约时报》作家多萝西•斯皮尔斯看来，季云飞似乎并不怎么感兴趣评判这一世上最浩大的水力工程，因为他所揭示的是人与自然环境的互相关系。季云飞说："古代学者坚信自然给与的道德模式是我们人类社会应该信奉的。恰似在中国书法里，一横就像云的结构，或者，是一自然生命的形式。"这部由北京荣宝斋印制的木刻水印版画长卷，由500余件木刻版完成。如季云飞的绘画一样，这件卷轴充盈着从浮草到怪力乱神等自然主义和象征主义的风景、人物图像。手卷之尽头是艺术家书写的关于长江治水在中国的历史。

季云飞于2006年获得美国学院罗马奖金以及居驻项目，并于2007年在伦敦的Parasol Unit当代艺术基金会完成了艺术家驻留项目。早在2005年，他就已经在耶鲁大学实施了艺术家居驻项目，在该学院学者们的协助下进行了大量的调研工作。其重要的美术馆个展《空城（2004）》始于圣路易斯的当代艺术馆，并巡展至麻省的罗斯美术馆和印第安纳的皮勒艺术中心。2004年，宾夕法尼亚大学的当代艺术中心策划了他的另一个个展《季云飞：东风》。迄今为止，季云飞的作品经由大小个展、群展在欧洲和美国各地频繁展出，其中包括2002年惠特尼双年展。2008年，他参加了与其他三位中国艺术家的群展《位移：三峡大坝与中国当代艺术》，该展览始于芝加哥的斯马特美术馆，后在美国国内开始巡回。季云飞现生活、工作于纽约。

更多信息，请联系 许宇Lxu@jamescohan.com或+86-21-54660825 x 602。

Yun-Fei Ji: Ghosts and Men from Badong July 3 through August 29, 2010 Opening reception: July 3, Saturday, 6 - 8 p.m.

James Cohan Gallery Shanghai is pleased to announce the exhibition by Yun-Fei Ji, opening July 3 and running through August 29. This is the first solo "homecoming" exhibition for the artist in mainland China, following his highly acclaimed exhibition at James Cohan Gallery, New York, earlier this year. The Shanghai exhibition will include new paintings on paper as well as the artist's recent major print project, a 32-foot long hand scroll, The Three Gorges Dam Migration, published by the Library Council of The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Born in 1963 in Beijing, Ji was separated from his parents at an early age and grew up with his grandparents outside of Hangzhou on a collective farm. There, with the absence of television and radio in the countryside, he was entertained by his grandmother who told him ghost stories and folk tales; his grandfather introduced him to calligraphy. Ji attended the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, studying traditional painting techniques with a particular interest in Song Dynasty landscape painting. Most of his professors at the time had been trained in the Soviet Union during the 1950s when classical Chinese art was considered neither fashionable nor progressive. However, it was a costume and lighting designer for films who taught Ji that "reading a painting is like reading a poem." This clearly struck a deep and lasting chord for the artist. After relocating to the United States in 1986 on a fellowship from Fulbright College at the University of Arkansas, Ji found his direction of reinventing the system of symbolic images and structures found in classical Chinese painting to explore the consequences of industrial development on contemporary life. As Ji states, "I use landscape painting to explore the utopian ideals of Chinese history, from exhibitions collectivization to new consumerism."

In his new body of work, Ji continues to reference the historical in order to connect with the contemporary while revisiting the folk legends he grew up with and also exploring classical texts such as Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio, a well-known collection of 18th century ghost stories by Pu Songling. Ji's paintings are populated by animal spirits and monsters, taking his inspiration from these tales to offer a critique on corruption, abuse and greed. The artist has recently taken inspiration from the writings of French libertarian, the Marquis de Sade. Ji draws a parallel between Sade's tales of decadence, where noblemen fall prey to vice and sexual misconduct while expecting the public to be self-sacrificing. Ji sees something of a connection in Sade's literary masterpiece as both a metaphor and foretelling for those in positions of power who have clearly turned against the fundamental principles extolled in Confucius and Taoist philosophy.

Also on view in Ji's exhibition is his new artist book The Three Gorges Dam Migration, which is presented in the form of a hand scroll. This work is another representation of the artist's continuing endeavor to portray the social and psychology controversy surrounding the building and subsequent flooding of the Three Gorges region on the Yangtze River. This 32-foot long, gradually unfolding narrative tells the story of the effects of the project on the general population of region. New York Times writer Dorothy Spears suggested that Ji is perhaps less interested in criticizing the world's largest hydroelectric power plant—long a symbol of progress in China— as he is revealing the interconnection between humans and their natural environment. The artist states: "The belief among ancient scholars is that nature offers an ethical model that we should follow in human society. A horizontal line, for example, in Chinese calligraphy, is like a cloud formation, or a natural, living form." The hand scroll consists of hand-printed paper mounted on silk that was made with over 500 hand-carved woodblocks. It was printed at the renowned Rongbaozhai studio in Beijing, which was once closely associated with Beijing's Imperial enclave and the Forbidden City. Rongbaozhai still makes prints and scrolls in the style it developed over a thousand years ago and has been declared a 'rare intangible cultural property' by the Chinese government. Like Ji's paintings, this scroll is populated with naturalistic and symbolic images of places and people, from 'floating weeds', an ancient Chinese phrase for displaced or homeless people, to imaginary and ghostly creatures. At the end of the scroll, Ji's calligraphy tells the long history of China's ambition to tame the Yangtze. Yun-Fei Ji received the 2006 American Academy Prix de Rome fellowship and residency, and, in 2007, was artist-in-residence at Parasol Unit foundation for contemporary art in London. In 2005, Ji was artist-in-residence at Yale University where he conducted extensive research with the institution's scholars. Ji's important solo museum exhibition, The Empty City, 2004, originated at the Contemporary Art Museum (St. Louis, Missouri) and toured to the Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Massachusetts, and the Peeler Art Center, De Pauw University, Indiana. In 2004, the exhibition Yun-Fei Ji: The East Wind was organized at the ICA, University of Pennsylvania. Ji's work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions throughout the United States and Europe, including the Whitney Biennial 2002. In 2008, Displacement: The Three Gorges Dam and Contemporary Chinese Art, an exhibition of four Chinese artists originated at the Smart Museum of Art, Chicago, and continues to tour nationally. Yun-Fei Ji lives and works in New York.

For Further information, please contact Leo Xu Lxu@jamescohan.com or by telephone +86- 21-54660825 x 602.