坚定——当代艺术群展 Resilience – Group Exhibition of Contemporary Art

Resilience – Group Exhibition of Contemporary Art
Mian Bu

Resilience – Group Exhibition of Contemporary Art

 

Curator: Mian Bu

 

Artists:

Jan Bauer, Jan Davidoff,

Shi Jun, Wang Gang, Wu Jingxu, Chai Zhongjian, Wei Ligang, Fang Er & Meng Jin, Guo Jinghan, Fan Zhen, Zou Cao, Chen Danyang,

Wang Yu, Deng Ying, Cui Qiang, Charlotte Eschenlohr, Lü Mei, Jin Sha, Lü Peng,

Burkhard von Harder, Shen Qi, Cheng Zhaoxing, Miguel Soler‑Roig, Wang He, Ju Anqi, Chang Zhifei

 

Organizer: Being 3 Gallery, Beijing

Cooperation: Wanglai Culture, Guangzhou

Venue: Foreign Merchants No.1, Zhengzhou

Navigation Address: North 2nd Gate, Foreign Merchants Apartment, Zhengzhou

Duration: February 28 – March 28, 2026

Opening: March 7, 2026, 16:00–18:00

Curatorial Essay

 

Spring Festival lanterns have brightened the streets of Zhengzhou, a splendid sight.

The chimes of the Year of the Horse are about to resound in this “heart of China’s railway network”.

It is with great pleasure that we announce the opening of FIRMNESS, a major international contemporary art exhibition one year in preparation, staged amid a global landscape of turbulence and economic downturn.

 

Curated by Zhengzhou‑born curator Mian Bu, drawing on her extensive experience in gallery management and international curation, the exhibition brings together leading international artists and prominent local artists from Zhengzhou.

It is at once the curator’s spiritual homecoming and a grand artistic showcase that balances academic rigor and local rootedness.

 

We warmly invite every resident of Zhengzhou to embrace contemporary art in a new way – celebrating the Year of the Horse with art – to appreciate its academic value and cultural significance, inject vitality into Zhengzhou’s cultural development, and add a new page to our shared cultural memory in the history of art.

 

The opening of this grand exhibition titled Resilience  unfolds gently in the daily flow of visitors, in warm conversation, and in the sound of hometown dialects.

 

Reunion at Spring Festival is more than material gathering; the hopes of the Year of the Horse lie further in spiritual reflection and elevation.

Upon entering the exhibition, visitors are first greeted by Zou Cao’s fingerprint paintings from the Peerless Beauties series.

Rooted in contemporary conceptual painting, the works carry forward Joseph Beuys’s core idea that “art is life”, using fingertips as a medium to transform bodily traces into visual language.

Each unique fingerprint texture is both a rebellion against standardized production in the age of mechanical reproduction and an academic inquiry into the essence of individual existence.

Within the lineage of art history, they echo abstract expressionism’s pursuit of emotional and bodily expression.

Their stunning visual realization unites scholarship and aesthetics, embodying the Year of the Horse spirit of “taking the lead” and affirming contemporary art’s commitment to individual expression.

 

In the photography section, German artist Burkhard von Harder’s abstract photography and Spanish artist Miguel Soler‑Roig’s out‑of‑focus photography represent two distinguished contemporary photographic movements.

Inheriting André Kertész’s tradition of “aesthetics of blur”, they dissolve figurative narrative through subjectivity and soft focusing, emphasizing the ontological value of color and form.

Burkhard von Harder’s Mount Purgatory Triptych employs fluid color textures to continue the lyrical abstraction of abstract expressionism, while integrating the formal restraint of minimalism.

It breaks the aesthetic paradigm of the “decisive moment” in traditional photography, questions existence, and pays homage to Dante’s Divine Comedy.

Miguel Soler‑Roig’s Flower Dreams, rooted in the New Objectivity tradition, centers on natural light to capture the poetic essence of everyday objects.

Refining form on a realistic foundation, it constructs a visual space of rationality and poetry, revealing the diverse academic directions of contemporary photography.

 

The section of hyper‑political and symbolic painting presents the academic expression of “symbolic metaphor” in contemporary art, continuing the lineage of conceptual art and symbolic painting since the 20th century.

Cheng Zhaoxing’s Red Star series adopts visual strategies from German Neo‑Expressionism, deconstructing and reconstructing political symbols to strip them of singular meaning and endow them with plural cultural metaphors.

Art historically, it responds to Gerhard Richter’s exploration of the relationship between sign and history.

Shi Jun’s Remaining Rituals takes “pipes” as its core symbol, belonging to contemporary abstract symbolism.

Following Mark Rothko’s idea that “color is emotion”, the work uses thick brushstrokes and abstract textures to metaphorize resilience and existential struggle, offering a visual interpretation of existentialism and paying tribute to Philip Guston.

Lü Mei’s Blue Tower and Red Tower series are visual expressions of spiritual symbolism, merging aesthetic characteristics of East and West.

 

As both an artist and a philosopher, we would like to quote Chai Zhongjian’s own statement:

“World 3” refers to a world constituted by three integrated dimensions:

objective matter + subjective expression + measured construction.

Using a single stick, a line, and a marked line in their most minimal form, the work reveals the ontology of the world and the state of human culture.

The “One” implies the ontological existence of “0 and 1”;

one stick represents the world of all objectified existence;

one line represents that all subjective expression begins with a single stroke and unfolds stroke by stroke;

the third line represents the cumulative measurement and planning of the manifestation of objective matter and the expression of subjective spirit —

from which all man‑made objects and the development of artificial intelligence emerge.

The white‑ground painting forms an integrated whole, with three lines coherently connected, carrying Eastern cultural and philosophical connotations.

By contrast, the black ground composed of three separate white blocks signifies “disciplinary knowledge”, a characteristic of Western culture after its division into specialized sciences.

The separate development of the three worlds defines modern human culture, hence the title Three Worlds.

 

This deeply philosophical work is regarded as a model of conceptual painting on canvas.

 

A major academic highlight of the exhibition is Jan Bauer’s Alps series, especially his paintings of the Dom (4,546 m).

Belonging to contemporary action painting, they continue Jackson Pollock’s assertion that “action is creation”.

The artist integrates mountaineering with painting; the marked locations and routes on the canvas are both authentic records of the creative process and endow the work with the academic value of “processuality”, breaking the limitations of static presentation in traditional painting.

The Dom itself carries three academic dimensions: sacredness, the sublime aesthetics of Romanticism, and the spirit of mountaineering.

The semantic meaning of “Dom” points to divine metaphor; its mountain form continues the visual symbol of the “sublime” in 19th‑century Romantic painting.

Monochrome tones, dome contours, and glacial textures construct the classic motif of a “nature–civilization” dialogue, echoing Caspar David Friedrich’s exploration of nature and spirit.

Within modern and contemporary art, Bauer abstracts the Dom’s dome into “primal geometry”, continuing the symbolic function of “sacredness and natural force” in the work of Giacometti and Gerhard Richter.

It fills an academic gap in contemporary art history regarding the Alpine theme and serves as an important research example in this field.

 

The exhibition conveys a warm message:

art is by no means an elitist academic luxury, but “cultural nourishment” that offers both academic value and spiritual sustenance.

In a time of economic slowdown and growing spiritual demand, this exhibition is both an academic presentation of contemporary art and a spiritual station for the public.

As a form of psychotherapy, art is widely applied in hospitals, communities, and education.

Many viewers have experienced in Fan Zhen’s paintings a gentle sense of healing that relieves stress and soothes the mind.

 

Deng Ying’s Tieying Street and Sofa — created by an artist who regards Zhengzhou as her second home — are vivid ukiyo‑e of beautiful moments.

Her style is known as the “Donut Everyday School”.

Deng Ying’s practice responds to the prejudice and neglect of women artists’ daily‑life themes in art history over the past 500 years.

Through nearly 20 years of artistic exploration, she stylizes the inherent joy of everyday narratives, her inner happiness, and allegorical figures, demonstrating wisdom blended with childlikeness and extraordinary intelligence.

 

Almost two decades ago, Cui Qiang — an artist who lived and worked in Zhengzhou and graduated from the Lu Xun Academy of Fine Arts and the Central Academy of Fine Arts — created his streetscape series such as Kung Fu, Fan Dance, and Park.

They embody the spectral archaeology of Expressionism and the Nietzschean Dionysian spirit.

At the same time, the artist dissolves Expressionism’s redemptive narrative:

martial arts poses are neither heroic nor existentially despairing, but pure joy of the “body without organs” as defined by Deleuze.

Inheriting certain legacies of Gauguin yet rejecting his colonial perspective, Cui constructs an aesthetic autonomy of the urban proletariat.

The extended limbs of martial arts practitioners in his works resemble the map of Zhengzhou’s subway lines, resonating with Deleuze and Guattari’s theory of the “rhizome”:

kung fu is no longer a museumified national heritage, but lines of flight permeating the process of urbanization.

 

Wang He’s Hug – Pharaoh fuses Pop Art and fairy‑tale aesthetics, continuing Andy Warhol’s academic idea that “the popular is art”.

With endearing visual language, it breaks the stereotype of contemporary art as cold and aloof, balancing scholarship and accessibility.

 

Since 2025, one of the most widely discussed topics has been artificial intelligence.

The specter of “the death of painting” has returned — a bodily awakening under the pressure of AI‑generated imagery — alongside the integration of art and technology.

AI is profoundly transforming artistic creation while opening new spaces and forms for art.

In Fang Er’s Chaotic Cosmos series, mechanical circles are deconstructed into trembling electronic pulses.

Nested concentric rings resemble both cosmic microwave background radiation captured by radio telescopes and the scratches of a skipping record.

Aby Warburg’s concept of “Pathosformel” emerges here:

the circle is both a totem of the technological age (hard disks, particle accelerator rings) and a digital reincarnation of the sun wheel in primitive rock art.

As fluorescent arcs flicker against a black background, they echo René Magritte’s questioning of “thing and name”.

 

Guo Jinghan’s digital art presented on LED screens carries a strong environmental message, encouraging reflection on urban transformation and a harmonious relationship between progress and the environment.

When displayed in light boxes, the shift in medium delivers an entirely different visual experience and profound sensation.

Oversized presentation enhances visual impact and immersion, allowing viewers to enter the Boundless World shaped by Eastern thought and advanced technology, experiencing unprecedented visual and emotional resonance.

His light‑box work Alive articulates the very essence of existence, powerfully and startlingly.

 

Meng Jin’s paintings have long explored the ambiguity between space and object, imbued with a metaphysical atmosphere.

His new Quiet Spring series reconstructs a poetic sense of breathing through semi‑abstract, relaxed compositions.

Forms multiply slowly like unicellular organisms; the circle is no longer a symbol of perfection, but a fragile temporal container like a cell membrane.

The artist states that his inspiration comes from the poetry of Paul Celan, touching upon the “aesthetics of fragmentation” in art history — such as the Venus de Milo — and philosophical contemplation.

 

The renowned experimental film director Ju Anqi presents his celebrated painting series Cursive Script.

Ju eliminates delicate textures, retaining only sharp, cold lines and warm or cool atmospheric fields.

He is fascinated by structural stability, sharp consciousness, and vast, mutable backgrounds.

Over a decade, his compositions have been increasingly reduced, yet gained a constant sense of time, rich saturated color, and greater stability.

His work belongs to the monochrome painting movement.

 

Paintings by Paris‑based artist Wang Yu and Munich‑based artist Charlotte Eschenlohr bring cultural diversity and a feminist sensitivity, grace, and ironic humor.

The artistic mutations of painterly archaeology and cultural genes — the fusion of ink painting and the Renaissance spirit — as well as the dialogue between globalization and local culture, find outstanding visual expression in the work of leading new meticulous‑brush artists Jin Sha and Lü Peng, who have long achieved extraordinary acclaim.

Ms. Julie Segraves, Chair of the Asian Arts Council in the U.S., scholar, and collector of new meticulous painting, praised:

“These exceptional artists create on silk using traditional Chinese ink and color, demonstrating superb meticulous brushwork and offering unique depictions of the struggles of daily life and the challenges of contemporary society.”

Professor Wang Gang, an eminent artist with a cosmic vision who paints on the earth itself, presents surprisingly innocent and childlike works.

At heart, the true artist is pure.

Perhaps art values not form itself, but a perspective, a warmth, an attitude, and a force.

Professor Wu Jingxu displays experimental works exploring pure visual language and materiality.

X Squared consists of three paintings from a series of experiments in which he seeks to explore the psychological, visual, and physical effects of spatial multiplicity in painting, offering a dimension of artistic purity in the exhibition.

Chen Danyang, one of the most significant abstract artists of the post‑1970 generation, presents his Well‑Tempered Clavier series, posing the question: what is the essence of painting?

Like Bach’s Well‑Tempered Clavier, Chen Danyang’s work reveals painting in its most essential form.

We may experience the synesthesia between painting and music through the art‑historical tool of “empathy theory”.

 

Dear people of Zhengzhou,

Spring Festival draws near, and the splendid lights of the long‑term exhibition space are already lit.

An artistic feast of academic height, international vision, and local warmth is ready.

Let us celebrate the Year of the Horse together in a new way — through art.

Our new year will gain deeper academic value and contemporary significance through this cultural contribution.

 

We look forward to meeting you at Resilience

to celebrate the Year of the Horse,

to share this artistic feast,

and to live a meaningful life —

with a painting on the wall!

Acknowledgments

 

Special thanks to Dr. Gong Yingchun, founder of Wanglai Culture, Guangzhou.

 

Thanks to Mr. Wu, founder of Foreign Merchants No.1, and his team.

For 20 years, they have deeply engaged in the creation of eclectic architectural spaces.

With essentialist spatial design that accommodates diverse artistic movements, they have provided an exceptionally academically compatible venue for this exhibition.