This is Mao Xuhui’s first solo exhibition in mainland China.
Cutting edge:Mao Xuhui’s solo exhibition
Exhibition time: May 13-June 3
Curator: Janeric Johansson(Sweden)
Cutting edge
When we all stood in Mao Xuhui’s studio, we were surrounded by huge paintings of scissors as we talked. It was springtime, and the studio had already started to become noticeably warm and stuffy.
Mao Xuhui has painted scissors for ten years. For him, the scissors both endows the primitive female skill of sewing and mending, and are also filled with female artistic imagination: the scissors his mother once used has attracted him a lot. At the same time, they are also connected to the “parents’ series” he painted ten years ago, which was on the theme of power and history. The scissors emphasize the everyday character of power.
The Chinese society is a changing environment, and the individual’s change is hard to trace in the changes of society. Mao Xuhui likes this kind of variation; he thinks that when new variations are created, they supply us with new possibilities and new thoughts. Change spurs the artists to keep thinking about the relationship between the individual and society, and how to enter society in an even calmer and more intellectual way. Mao Xuhui says “Today, I paint in the way I disliked the most in the 80ties; at that time, I liked heaviness, bitterness and impulsiveness. After the 90ties, I find that my artwork has become calmer and more intellectual.”
The 13th of May 2005, at 20:00, the opening ceremony and reception for “Cutting Edge” will take place in Nordica. This is Mao Xuhui’s first solo exhibition in Yunnan and will show his latest, as well as some of his earlier, works.
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