65 Contemporary Portraitures "37 x 33"

Date/Time
Date(s) - 06/04/2019 - 21/04/2019
10:00 am - 12:00 pm

Location Address 798 Art District, No. 2 Jiuxianqiao Road, Chaoyang District

City Beijing

Country/State

Categories

The exhibition gathers 65 works in the size of 37 x 33 cm made by 28 artists.

Based on his experience with the collection of contemporary Chinese art, curator Nikolaus Ellrodt selects a series of portraits in diverse themes and styles as an invitation for discussing the relationships between commissioned works and contemporary art.

红门画廊非常荣幸地宣布当代肖像画群展《37 x 33》，将于4月6日下午4点开幕。此次展览聚集了28位艺术家创作的65幅、尺寸为37 x 33厘米的作品。策展人Nikolaus Ellrodt通过在中国当代艺术收藏上的经验，为此次展览摘选了一系列通过委任完成的、主题多样的肖像画，并邀请观者一同探讨委任作品与当代艺术的关系。

Curatorial Statement

The idea of this exhibition started from a very simple demand of two Italian collectors, who asked for portraits in one particular size. Zhou Tiehai created the work in 37 x 33 cm that later became the first small portrait in their collection. Inspired by the unique size of the work, over the years, the two collectors continue to commission works of art created in 37 x 33 cm – a size which cannot be readily found on the artist’s stock. That is, works created in the particular size would be a special commission.

I reckoned that it would be a very interesting exhibition to ask many artists to create works with these two parameters, the size 37 x 33 cm and that the subject is some kind of portrait – leaving it up to them how they express portraiture and what medium they would prefer to use. An almost even participation of female artists was important to me, artists of all stages of their careers the same, including some very young artists – some of them even self-taught and not immersed in the art world at all.

It is up to you to judge if this experiment becomes a vivid and compelling mirror of the current art scene of China.

策展人序言

此次展览的想法始于两位意大利收藏家的一个简单要求——他们希望收藏以特定尺寸制作的肖像画。周铁海曾经创作了一幅37×33厘米的作品，随后作为二位藏家的收藏中第一件小幅肖像画。因被这件作品独特的尺寸启发，藏家在之后数年持续委任尺寸为37×33厘米的作品——这是一种并不能够轻易在艺术家库存中找到的尺寸。也就是说，凡是将作品做成这种尺寸的作品都将会是为这一委任而做。

我认为聚集这许多的艺术家，让他们以37 x 33 厘米这两种参量来创作跟肖像这一主题相关的作品，会使这个展览充满趣味。当然，以何种表现方式、何种材料来创作，是全凭艺术家做主的。对我来讲，女性艺术家，和处于职业生涯不同阶段的、或年轻或自学或从没有进入过主流艺术圈的艺术家，他们的同等参与度是极其重要的。

当然，这次尝试性展览是否会成为中国当代艺术的一面生动且引人注目的镜子，就要由你来判断了。