prosthetic knowledge

Appearance Of Crosses by Ding Li 

Continual painting series by Shanghai artist creates abstract colourful grids using the cross as his motif mark unit. He has been making these paintings for 20 years and is considered one of the most important abstract artists working in China today.

DING Yi’s signature takes the form of a cross that is repeatedly and carefully constructed across surfaces. With this minimalist visual rhetoric, painting is not about illusion and the representation of objects. Instead, DING Yi explores an abstract aesthetic through the systematic repetition and direct visual representation of the cross. Created by the layered intersection of vertical, horizontal and diagonal lines across the surface, the paintings encourage the process of perception. Viewed from a distance, everything gradually converges. But viewed up-close, the subtlety of lines and color are vibrantly present. The paintings simultaneously refer to themselves, as paintings per se, and to the reality around them that has only been distilled into grids and check pattern. Rather than creating a future reality, DING Yi proceeds from a preconceived reality. He has conceptually integrated the conditions of the work’s production and reception within the work itself. The abstract realism of the paintings have, especially, become an analysis of their conditions of production: the repeated motif of the cross has been re-made again and again, indefinitely and continuously for 18 years now. In his visual structures, he seems to be aiming for a meticulous systematization of simplicity opposed to the bombastic rhetoric of the literati tradition. Thus his crosses on the surface have been described as the embodiment of a deliberate “diffusion of pictorial illiteracy.”

More can be discovered at ShangART Gallery website here

PK Note: Goes without saying there is an (unintentional) fractal / digital quality to the work.

Lu Xinjian: Invisible Poems

Second of two posts looking at the work of artist Lu Xinjan from Shanghai.

In this series of paintings, what appears to be a random patterning in Lu’s trademark style actually conceals lines of poetry which under closer inspection can be found.

From an essay about the series, ‘Showing The Invisible’, by Mark Talaco:

I believe this is what we seek through art – both from the creative and the receptive side – something that can encapsulate that which is not there, create something from the nothingness in order to view  it as something. It is our sound and fury, the idiotic tale of we poor players.

Some of the questions that arise as I try to write an introduction to
explain what Lu Xinjian has done in his new series Invisible Poem are: Where do the arts blend? Can one arrive at the same place when looking at the painted poem as one does when reading it? Is the route
quicker for one over the other?

By taking poems about Love written by poets from different times and
cultures and recoding the letters and characters into his unique design of simple line, shape and colour, Lu Xinjian asks us to rethink language and challenges the boundary between poetry and visual art to see how the two overlap and complement each other while still retaining their own meaning.

You can see more examples at Lu Xinjian’s website here, or at Art Labor, a Shanghai art gallery currently showing the artists work, here.

Previous post about the artist: Lu Xinjian: City DNA

Lu Xinjian: City DNA 

First of two posts looking at the work of artist Lu Xinjan from Shanghai.

Lu creates works based on abstract arrangements of symbols aesthetically, which are actually based on information and reality. In the City DNA series, maps of famous cities from around the world are codified with Lu’s unique design grammar.

You can check out all of Lu’s current collection of the ongoing series here

Next post on the artist’s work: Invisible Poems

ANATOMY OF JESUS by illustrator KZENG 

via neochaEDGE

啾啾 00 via Empty Kingdom

Gorgeous collection of photographs from the portfolio of Shanghai photographer 啾啾 00:

Shanghai photographer 啾啾 00 is also an avid film camera collector, where as some rare cameras I cannot believe she has. Her body of work all feel personal with a delicious touch of contrast. She also shoots with this simple minimal composition through 6×6 film. Personally I’d say she’s my photographer of the month who also sounds like my future wife.

There are 9 images on this website but don’t you worry she has 77 more pages of beautiful work on her flickr.

Shanghai Museum of Glass via The Cool Hunter

Shanghai’s shiny new Museum of Glass opened last week as part of Shanghai’s campaign of becoming a globally important cultural and creative centre by launching 100 museums in a decade.

Very impressive museum space design - more to be found here

Shanghai Urban Light Graffiti (via neochaEDGE)

Shanghai’s Expo nearly ready - The Big Picture - Boston.com

A worker stands at the wall of the South Korea pavilion at the World Expo site in Shanghai, China, Wednesday, April 28, 2010. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

ハングルらしいデザイン。

via unknownlabel

Shelley Duvall’s Faerie Tale Theatre -1 by *Zephyrance - don’t wake me up.

Wardrobe Girl by *Zephyrance - don’t wake me up.

In contrast to photographs of the 1970 World’s Fair — a.k.a. Expo ‘70, Boston’s The Big Picture has a series of photos on the preparation for the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai.

In this photo taken Sunday, Feb. 21, 2010, a man labors in front of the Seed Cathedral, formed by thousands of slender acrylic rods - the centerpiece of the UK Pavilion, at the Shanghai World Expo site in Shanghai, China. The expo starts May 1 and runs for six months. It is expected to draw 70 million visitors. (AP Photo)

There is some amazing stuff in there.