Shao Fan-Pierre Marie Lejeune-Sculpteurs-Deux Propositions:
Contrasts Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of new sculptures by the French and Chinese master sculptors, Pierre Marie Lejeune and Shao Fan. This exhibition celebrates the recent history of Sino-French cultural exchange and is part of the Jiaoliu/Croisement(s) intercultural festival in China and supported by the French Ambassador in China. In addition, Shao Fan et Pierre Marie Lejeune: Sculpteurs—Deux Propositions marks the opening of the most recent Contrasts Gallery space, located in the 798 Dashanzi Art District in Beijing.
In order to foster continued artistic exchange between France and China, Contrasts Gallery has commissioned the sculptors to create reinterpretations of each other’s works, thereby creating new sculptures that combine elements from both cultures. Although Pierre Marie Lejeune and Shao Fan come from different backgrounds, they have both established themselves in the international art world and have earned reputations as two of the world’s foremost contemporary sculptors, making them prime candidates for such an experiment.
Pierre Marie Lejeune, a Paris-based artist, has exhibited internationally for the past twenty years. He has an abiding interest in geometric shapes and creates large-scale combinations of geometrical forms using reflective metals. Shao Fan is a Beijing artist who attempts to integrate the rapidly-vanishing Chinese cultural past with contemporary Chinese art; his sculptures blend Ming Dynasty wooden furniture with modern materials and aesthetics. Major museums and corporations such as the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Microsoft Corporation, and Price Waterhouse Coopers collect his work, and he regularly exhibits in international art fairs as well as in gallery and museum exhibitions.
As visitors to the exhibition will see, the artistic products that have resulted from this cultural interchange are extraordinary. Lejeune has merged his appreciation for geometry with Fan’s interest in Ming Dynasty forms. In Maximing (2006), Lejeune has created a black lacquer and mirror-finished steel geometric structure, incorporating a traditional Ming Dynasty joint form in a typical Lejeune abstract geometrical shape. Shao Fan has also ingeniously combined his and Lejeune’s work in his Mirror Image (2006). This piece takes as its basis Lejeune’s interest in geometry, and is in simplified fact a three-dimensional cross. However, Fan has created the cross by combining four Ming Dynasty chairs. Maximing and Mirror Image are instantly recognizable as the work of Lejeune and Shao Fan, respectively, and yet each artist has adapted their typical aesthetic in order to include elements from foreign culture.
Shao Fan-Pierre Marie Lejeune-Sculpteurs—Deux will be on view at Contrasts Gallery, 798 Art District, No. 4 Jiu Xianqiao Road, Beijing, from May 14-June 28.
For more information or media inquiries, please contact:
Wendy Wang wendywang@contrastsgallery.com
(8621) 6474 1216
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