“UN-NATURAL” EXHIBITION

Hosted by: Formica, Frame China, BCA
Duration: 2009.4.17 – 4.29
Curator: Bu Bing, Sun Tian
Venue: Beijing Center for the Arts
Participating Artists: Bu Bing, Ding Yi, Da She, Ma Qingyun, Liu Jiakun, Hua Li, Zhang Yonghe, Zhang Ke, Zhang Bin, Chen Xudong, Meng Yan, Zheng Zaidong, Zhu Xiaofeng, Xu Tiantian In this exhibition, the very traditional passion of Chinese intellectuals towards nature is displayed in an “un-natural” way. 
Materials from Formica usually seen in kitchen, laboratory, or fast-food restaurant are here deployed by 14 Chinese architects and artists to build forms of furniture, space, or even artifact undefined with a purpose. We choose the theme “un-natural” to rethink ecology and sustainability issues through synthetic material.
As the awareness of environmentalism always mis-leads people to prefer natural materials, ignoring the truth that some of them are actually not reproducible. The ethical or esthetic value of material can be always argued, but a life style, maybe un-natural, in today’s synthetic environment is pressingly needed here.
Furthermore, “un-natural” is a revisit to the unique subject of nature in Chinese literati tradition such as stone connoisseurship. Although object touve is replaced here by art work, the passion to interpret nature remains alive in contribution to this exhibition. “Cloudery”, the work of Zhu Xiaofeng, with a size of 2800mmX1200mmX1000mm, was made of layers of white and blue “surreal” artificial stone veneers.

http://www.idchina.net/special/mixinfo/un_natural/zhuxiaofeng.html