In its underlying critical negation of propositions of recent art history embraced uncritically by the preceding generation of Chinese contemporary artists, Jia’s work, in its conceptual features, often treats ideas originally developed in Western culture such as text-based conceptual art; and the transposition of the readymade to photography as it derives from the Düsseldorf School.
But in its formal aspect, the work most often reinterprets Chinese paradigms, such as compositional patterns in Chinese calligraphy, and projection systems of the traditional Chinese landscape.
This general tension of cultures between the work’s formal and conceptual elements serves a more specific critique of conditions in both China and the West. Most often, the artist chooses for the work an outwardly “pretty” aspect in order to address an atrocious reality.
Photo © Daniel Biskup
Selected Exhibitions
2018
Language: Art for Leonard Peltier, Los Angeles Water School, LA
2017
Caution, Children! Humboldt Box, Berlin
2017
Lost Highway, Taubert Contemporary, Berlin
2017
Luther and the Avantgarde, Altes Gefaengnis, Wittenberg
2016
SCHNITTMENGEN, Museum für Asiatische Kunst, Berlin
2016
The Chinese Version, Steve Turner, LA
2014
Contrasts and Utopias, The 4th edition of the End of the World Biennial, Argentina & Chile
2014
Environmental Impact, Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art, Los Angeles
Jia at the Strasbourg Biennale
- 3 works presented
- Venue : Hôtel des Postes