The text about Cang Xin's works is after Biography
1967
Born in Suihua of Heilongjiang Province, China
1988
Studied in Tianjin Academy of Music, China
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2008
Cang Xin: Mythology - 10 Chancery Lane Gallery, Hong Kong
Selected Group Exhibitions
2009
Action - Camera: Beijing Performance Photography - The Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Vancouver, BC
'How do I know about the world? By what is within me' - Willem Kerseboom Modern & Contemporary Art, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
A Starting Point: Intrude Art & Life 366, Dynamics of change and growth, Jan 1st-Dec 31st, 2008 - Zendai Museum of Modern Art, Shanghai, China
2008
Proyecto genero 2 - Espace Cultural Ample, Barcelona
The Revolution Continues: New Art from China - The Saatchi Gallery, London, UK
Now & New - Gana Art Busan, Busan
Made in China - Espace Cultural Ample, Barcelona
Crouching Paper, Hidden Dragon - Works on paper - F2 Gallery, Beijing, China
China Under Construction II - Deborah Colton Gallery, Houston, TX
FotoFest 2008 - FotoFest, Houston, TX
2007
Zhù yi! Fotografía actual en China - ARTIUM Centro-Museo Vasco de Arte Contemporáneo, Vitoria-Gasteiz
MADE in CHINA - the Estella collection - The Israel Museum, Jerusalem
Mao - MITTERRAND+CRAMER/FINE ART/GENEVE, Geneva
China Under Construction - Contemporary Art from the People's Republic - Deborah Colton Gallery, Houston, TX
Beijing BS1 Contemporary Museum 2007 Nomination Exhibition - Zhu Qizhan Art Museum, Shanghai, China
Gallery Artists Group Show - 10 Chancery Lane Gallery, Hong Kong
Some kind of Portrait - Marc Selwyn Fine Art, Los Angeles, CA
Barcelona - Paris - Pekin - Espace Cultural Ample, Barcelona
Guangzhou Photo Biennial 2007 - Guangzhou Photo Biennial, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China
Dragon's Evolution - ChinaSquare - New York, New York City, USA
Timer 01 - Triennale Bovisa, Milan
MADE in CHINA - the Estella collection - Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk
2006
Ona B. - Cang Xin - The Grat Wall - Magazin4 - Bregenzer Kunstverein, Bregenz
Group Show - Espace Cultural Ample, Barcelona
Chinese Relativity - Stux Gallery, New York City, USA
Between Past and Future: New Photography and Video from China - Nasher Museum of Art, Durham, NC
Outside Context Problem - 10 Chancery Lane Gallery, Hong Kong
Field of Vision-Beijing - Beijing New Art Projects, Beijing, China
Gallery Artists Group Show 6 - 10 Chancery Lane Gallery, Hong Kong
Beyond Experience: New China! - Arario Beijing, Beijing, China
Between Past and Future: New Photography and Video from China - Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, Germany
2005
Between Past and Future: New Photography and Video from China - Victoria and Albert Museum - V&A, London, UK
Tribute to 85 - Shanghai Duolun Museum of Modern Art, Shanghai, China
Gallery Artists Group Show 5 - 10 Chancery Lane Gallery, Hong Kong
Beijing Contemporary - Galerie Kampl - München, Munich
Vehicle and Mirror - Beijing New Art Projects, Beijing, China
2004
Photography, New York City, USA
China Meets India in Berlin - Alexander Ochs Gallery, Berlin + Beijing
Gallery Artists Group Show 4 - 10 Chancery Lane Gallery, Hong Kong
Between Past and Future: New Photography and Video from China - Asia Society and Museum, New York City, USA
Between Past and Future: New Photography and Video From China - ICP - International Center of
Gallery Artist Group Show 3 - 10 Chancery Lane Gallery, Hong Kong
2003
A Strange Heaven - Contemporary Chinese Photography - Galerie Rudolfinum, Prague
Gallery Artists Group Show 2 - 10 Chancery Lane Gallery, Hong Kong
2002
Biennale of Sydney 2002 - Biennale of Sydney, Sydney, NSW
Reinterpretation: A Decade of Experimental Chinese Art / 1st Guangzhou Triennial-The Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China
Text and Subtext - Kunsthallen Nikolaj, Copenhagen
13th Biennale of Sydney - The World May Be (Fantastic) - Museum of Contemporary Art Sydney - MCA, Sydney, NSW
Cang Xin's Mythology II
Cang Xin's creation at this time has taken the rebuilt basic dynamic energy in the nature, which are gold, wood, water, fire and soil, as the creative media to inject the spiritual experience of humanist value and universe values into this work, with the help of the original religion of nomad and hunting peoples which is the compass where the nature and people combining together.
Cang Xin's creation at this time has taken the rebuilt basic dynamic energy in the nature, which are gold, wood, water, fire and soil, as the creative media to inject the spiritual experience of humanist value and universe values into this work, with the help of the original religion of nomad and hunting peoples which is the compass where the nature and people combining together.
The artist tries to make use of different materials to express his own words, which is the spot of most thought in modern art. The utilized materials all have the metaphor with particular extension. Especially in the field of installations, various materials have been placed in a same time and space, and the context and continuousness of the inter communication among the materials are just the profound of reading the exhibition. The sculptures made from digital photos, sketches, stainless steel and steel have explored new borders and repeatedly looked for the imagination of Cang Xin among the "inexpressible" mode in the daily life.
Dummy
Being in the era of virtual images, there is no question about whether the reproduction and the objects of reproduction are subject to the real. It's because that the virtual images have replaced the real and the real exists as various modes and modules. Only "super real" could be left. The reproduction basing on material could be felt and understood to touch and feel this "super real". Digital photos have derived from Cang Xin's series of "Man and Sky as One". The artist virtualized and copied his own image and put into the original mountains and swamp, and then he lit the open fire to express the new natural talking ways with respect to sky and earth in the image of Shaman or the assemble ceremony of original tribe.
Desire
Huge sketch is used by Cang Xin to express the real and virtual dream by the extension and transformation of original charcoal. The sketch has made use of the form and materials which are most similar to the original mural painting to express again the distinctive family memory and super-real legends of the artist and build up the mode of Cang-style Fable. Distorted flowers, rearranged Cang Xin's body and various reptiles never seen in the real have all run through the atmosphere of the exhibition. All of those have give another explanation to the artist's desire in the form of solid division, or in other words, those have projected the desire into all over the exhibition to build up the desire which could capture the drifting desire in the real. The colors of black and white have the meanings of dream.
Life and Death
The stainless steel is the most common metal symbol in modern daily life and now it has demonstrated the connection and generation of killing and survival in forms of knives and guns and also connected with the former series of Licking. The hunting in the original society is one kind of ceremony of sacrifice. Killing is the strength of being. The visible shake from licking the knifepoint stands for the contradiction between the terror and desire. The early society learned and understood that: "the nature of the life is killing and eating which is also the significant secret the mythology should explore." The nature of hunting has developed into the enlargement of war today. The recycling between the hunter and the hunted has played the different war march by the simple sculpture forms and cold metal elements. The intercommunity with internal experience calls for the original sin of the human.
Symbol
The traditional cooper sculpture materials have not been adopted and the main spiritual lines of instant existence of practice art have not been disobeyed. The utilization of emulated silica gel is the "presence" of the body. The old practice art were all recorded by photos and videos. Cang Xin bravely tried the new materials to make some differences but also reserve the instant interacting touching between practice art and the viewers. The reproduction and emulation of emulated silica gel have made excellent interaction between the artist's symbols and other symbols in the spot. All the present elements, including the interaction of the viewer's feeling, seeing and touching, have reached the highest point. The existence of material has multiple explanations.
The development of our era is influenced by the science, technology and rational thinking and it rooted from the Enlightenment in Europe. Philosophers in the Enlightenment believed that understanding the world and person with rationality and dropping off the already habits and prejudice could control the future. However, the world has developed into nowadays global electric economy. Many new risks and the uncertainty of environment could not be simply resolved by technology. Traditional religion, faith and national recognition have all searched for survival in striving for new transformation and made the traditional ceremony to carry on the saying that the irrationality of modern seamy side was the influence of the Enlightenment. The thinkers in that era equaled the circumstances of tradition, ceremony and inexpressibility to the ignorance and undeveloped and rationalized their actions of seeking the newness. At present, the confusion shown among the global anxiety could not be defined between the faith and rationality. In the traditional civilization, the past has built up real life through the common collective faith and etiquette, because the ceremony gave the life continuousness and forms. Without etiquette and ethic, every thing would lose its focus and could not find its own position. The continue and development of whole human civilization should adhere to its potential traditional rules.
All artist ceremonies with desire of communication have made use of visible shaking to occupy our rational concepts. Only the artist use artistic words to input the time without time and picture without picture to input into spiritual fields in the form of memory of mythology. It could linger around your heart and ply with the real. The charm of art has been displayed. The imagination of human beings could not shrink, therefore. The exhibition is the subject and object; the internal and external floating civilized bodies transformed into the meaning of culture or the concept of society through the transformation of space progress, symbols, imagination, memory and rules.
This production of Cang Xin has made use of metaphor of the art but still based on the built legend, myths and religions. It has paid attention to the requirement modern collective mentality. For the common existed shake and contradiction in real society with high speed development, it has presented the etiquette incline of returning to original orders and respecting the nature and Man and Sky as One. It has also created a self mythology kingdom having visible shaking and directly liking to the heart of modern people.