Xiao Yu: Cement Floor

Date: July 30-Aug 20 — all day Venue: The Pace Gallery Beijing Price: Free entry Pace Beijing is honored to present the Xiao Yu solo exhibition Cement Floor. The artist’s third exhibition at Pace Beijing, once again presents the artist’s singular contemporary vision. In this exhibition, the artist again utilizes bamboo, a creative material uniquely imbued with Chinese traditional aesthetics. This material took center stage in the artist’s work in 2010 in a series with a powerful sense of strength that reflects the artist’s deep thinking on contemporary society and the human condition. This exhibition can be seen as a continuation of Xiao Yu’s previous solo exhibition. In the third segment of the 2015 exhibition Oblivion, the artist presented a series of life-themed paintings that provided an individualized response to the dilemmas of contemporary society. Life has been a persistent inner thread concealed within the artist’s oeuvre. In this latest creation, the artist conceals his own insights into life within the highly expressive appearance of bamboo—this primal living thing, with its Eastern traditional aesthetic import, seems to be an inevitable creative choice here. The repeating scene of external force and life’s resistance to it also seems to reference a more deeply concealed emotional thread in the artist’s heart. The massive tension borne of this resistance grows from the sensory level to catalyze the most direct experience resonance in the viewer. Website: pacegallery.com