Thank you to Guzel Photography Services for making this fun time-lapse video of the team installing Gao Xiang's first U.K. exhibition in Oct-Nov 2017. So many good memories.

GAO XIANG: INTEROGATING DREAMS

30 OCTOBER - 4 NOVEMBER

Mon - Sat | 10:00am - 6:30pm

Open Gallery Tour By Artist | 1 Nov, 12:00pm - 2:00pm

Gao Xiang: Interrogating Dreams balances between dreams and reality, East and West.  Showcasing for one week only, the show is a rare opportunity to view the works of this internationally acclaimed Chinese contemporary artist in London.

Gao Xiang examines the human spirit, felt in the timelessness of his landscapes and the imagery of animals, especially the horse. For Gao Xiang, the horse is an extension of his soul and a symbol of the universe and Chinese traditions.

The horse has a dominant role in Chinese tradition and history. In the Pagoda of Horses subset of the Dreams series, Gao Xiang renders the horses in the form of Tang Dynasty terracotta figurines stacked as a pagoda, a symbol rich in cultural and Buddhist meaning.  Painted in red, white and black - a reference to traditional ink pigments - the pagoda of horses symbolises the sprit of the seasons, the strength of tradition and its place in contemporary society, and also the human spirit.

Sometimes pictured atop the horse pagoda is a small figure of a man, standing on the millennia of history, straining to see far into the future – his and all of ours.

For Gao Xiang, the horse is also a mystical force representing both the universe and his soul. It is a power that can be contained or unleashed, gentle or ferocious. This strength is often contrasted with the much smaller figure of a man.

Gao Xiang's installations follow the theme of his paintings while exploring the interaction between the object and its environment. The transparency of glass allows for almost infinite experiential immersions as the work influences the background and the background influences the perception of the work.

Gao Xiang's landscape paintings interrogate dreams through the power and movement of ancient trees and the timeless grandeur of the cliffs and coastline in Normandy and China. "Set off by the magnificent and mutable sky and sea, the white cliffs can have an infinite variety of tones, but ... around noon ... in the stable light, the colors of the cliffs do not change and there are no hints of the passage of time."

About Gao Xiang

Gao Xiang was born in 1971 in Kunming, the capital of China’s Yunnan Province. He holds a Ph.D. from the prestigious China Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) in Beijing, and splits his time between studios in Kunming and Beijing.

Gao Xiang's works are collected by museums in Asia and Europe; his installations have been commissioned for public spaces from China to Paris; and he has been widely exhibited by galleries and museums in Asia and internationally, including France and the United States.  This is his first exhibition in the U.K.