Participating Artists:Guan Yong/Zhao Zhao/Xia Xing/Xu Shun
Exhibition Venue: New Age Gallery（Beijing）
Exhibition Period: 2012.6.9~2012.6.30

Detached Involvement From June 9, 2012 to June 30, 2012 Beijing New Age Gallery will hold an exhibition titled "Detached Involvement", the first exhibition born of the gallery's long¬term program that aims to give more freedom to young artists in their art practice. Initiated in 2011, this program, financially supported by Beijing New Age Gallery, encourages the artists to carry out their artistic activities independently and to dedicate themselves to experimental and exploratory art practice that will finally meet the public in the form of exhibits. Guan Yong, Xia Xing, Zhao Zhao and Xu Shun made up the first group of artists included in this program. This "temporary group" came to agreement after lots of discussions, which obviously means great effort by each member. "Consumption" thus got accepted by the majority as the point of departure for paintings. The works by the four artists in this exhibition will probably shed some light on different aspects of "consumption". Our life today is flooded with paradoxes and absurdities, as Dostoyevski reflected through the dialogue between Ivan and Alyosha in The Brothers Karamazov: the world needed absurdity desperately as it was based on absurdity, or we could achieve nothing, which we could not be more aware of. The human body is subject to power either in a visible or invisible way. Forced to consume according to the rules of power and the system of culture, or the ideology, we are trapped in the rules of the game. Never are we so conscious as today, but there is no way to flee or change. In the hell where we live, we have no choice about our inmost anger and helplessness but to convert them into detached involvement. The seeming indifference, however, implies silent protests. It is probably the message the title "detached involvement" is expected to convey. As a title, "detached involvement" here has neither positive nor negative implication because it defines our attitude, i.e., to participate actively as a detached observer, which is the key to how we are related to the world and to our existence. It echos what Goethe (Goethe, J.W.V., 1749¬1832) said, "There is no better deliverance from the world than through art; and a man can form no sure bond with it than through art." Those fleeting days in the past, good or bad, have to leave some traces in our mind in the material form thanks to "detached art". It might be these traces that guide our culture that keeps generating and transforming in fluidity... Xia Yun Wangjing May 12, 2012 Theme: Detached Involvement ¬ Guan Yong, Zhao Zhao, Xia Xing, Xu Shun Group Exhibition