The vernissage for the group exhibition WORDLESS TIME took place on June 20, 2020 at 7 p.m. in Pashmin Art Gallery Hamburg.

When the Chinese poet, Feng Jicai, saw the rock paintings in the Helan Mountains, he expressed his feeling: ´´Time is silent, but the stone speaks´´. That is, all mortals are separate from one another in the sequence of the generations. Only the stones remain and transmit their message to the next generation. This not only does emphasize the timeless importance of cultural assets, but also draws our attention to the connection between time and art, which is always discussed as a classic topic in art historical and aesthetic research. On the one hand, art must prove itself in time; on the other hand, time relies on the expressive capacity of art to make its historical or aesthetic meaning visible and tangible to its viewers. Each artist designs the forms of time in his/her own way of representation.

In this exhibition, we proceed three different dimensions in the narrative about the time of three Chinese artists, Zhong Biao, Chen Zhiguang and Ren Rong.

Zhong Biao uses the variety, the fullness and the shine of colors and thus visualizes his personal perceptions and experiences. From his individual perspective, he uses intense colors to highlight the moments that are important to him; the moments which rest in the ethereal eternity.

Chen Zhiguang creates reproducible metal statuettes to represent the collective energies of modern societies. In his installations, the ants symbolize with their natural vitality and their iron will to work together the sedulity and activity of modern humans. Like the ants, they are constantly on the move, settle down, move on, work and multiply. With this, the artist shows in his work the restless zeitgeist of an era that never finds rest.

Ren Rong creates rubbing paintings. Rubbing is a traditional process from East Asia. The image of the carving, the engraving or the relief is transferred from stone to paper. The old technology has now become an individual art form called Frottage. Ren Rong uses the historical meaning of this art form and transcribes the language of the old cultures into a universal allegory picture in which ancient archetype of different origins break the geographic isolation and integrate them with each other.

Duration: 20. 06. – 20. 08. 2020

Venue: Pashmin Art Gallery Hamburg – Gotenstr. 21, 20097 Hamburg

© Chenxin Ge

Pashmin Art Gallery