Art News

Solo Exhibition of Tian Xiaolei in the United States opens at Meulensteen

artwork: Tian Xiaolei  - "Reconstructed Landscape Series", 2011  - Digital print, 50 x 50 cm. - Courtesy of Meulensteen, NY


NEW YORK, NY.- Meulensteen announces the first solo exhibition of Tian Xiaolei in the United States. Based in Beijing, he creates surreal animated videos and images that engage with the history of Chinese art and the rapidly evolving social, economic, and political realities of contemporary China. The exhibition features Song of Joy, an ambitious computer-animated film through which Tian explores the relationship between pretended joy and real pain, and addresses hidden truths regarding the era of consumption and desire. This boisterous and ironic celebration of the new China features hundreds of identically outfitted businessmen frolicing in a chaotic amusement park and participating in choreographed dances and marches to the tune of Mozart’s Requiem. Also on view is Tian’s print series Chinese Contemporary Paintings. Employing digital techniques to reinterpret the conventions of Chinese traditional landscape painting, Tian creates naturecentered images of dramatic topographies that become dwarfed by fantastic animal figures. Exhibition on view through February 18th.