LATITUDE Gallery is pleased to present our first exhibition of work by Artist duo Xianglong Li and Tong Wang. Exhibition: Stay home, make contribution to the society. Curated by Shihui Zhou, Artist couple Xianglong Li and Tong Wang’s recent body of work will be on view till 28th of January, 2021.
We could not travel as before, we could not socialize as before, we could not go to school as usual, it was like time is at a standstill, because of the outbreak of the Corona virus, it seems like our lives did not go on, but we gradually adapted to find happiness in suffering under the fear of the pandemic.
In the artist duo of XiangLong Li and Tong Wang's artworks, it happened from the beginning of the pandemic to the second wave outbreak. <Safe God> and <Five suggestions for response to COVID - 19> with the couplet and slogans as medium to warn people avoid traveling. <Happiness falling from the sky> and <A liberated inorganic life form> present a "romantic" life during the quarantine time in absurd way. small budgets artworks <Household appliance altar cabinet> and <Learning Chinese with XiangLong, A Collection of Chinese idioms> alluded to the people’s new lifestyle in the pandemic.
These stay-at-home DIY artworks are the biggest contribution to the society from a point of view of preventing spread pandemic.
In the work <Learning Chinese with XiangLong, A Collection of Chinese idioms>, by simulating the classroom teaching mode, Chinese is explained in an absurd and humorous way. Chinese words and sentences are converted into imprecise English by means of the translation machine. The audience will be taught by the teaching method of spoon-feeding with visual and auditory scenes in an attempt to brainwash. In addition, the influence of the phenomenon of pan-entertainment on cultural transmission in the era of information fragmentation is explored by a series of works.
XiangLong Li was born in China and is now living and working in New York. He earned his BFA in Illustrated Book degree from China Central Academy of Fine Arts and is studying in MFA Fine Arts at the School of Visual Arts currently. In his body of works, he remixes images, texts, and 3D model materials from pop-culture, social events, and the internet. XiangLong produces GIFs, Videos, and Paintings, which focus on culture discrepancy and fragment of information.
Artist Tong Wang was born in 1997, which was during China's restrictive family planning policies. Like most of my generation she was an only child born into an increased sense of loneliness and spiritual emptiness. But the late 90's also happened to be a period of rapid economic development in China, with big growth in entertainment and access that the internet provided. In this new era of the internet, children were more accustomed to form their social circles online, so there was a lot of non-mainstream activity online at that time. These kinds of alternative groups connected me to the online youth subculture, which only existed in the online world and gave the social network new images to translate to consumers of online material. Her work explores youth subculture, internet pop culture and aesthetic approaches to the Internet. In this exhibition her body of works are rooted in her skepticism about internet culture as it is currently circulating through cyberspace and the world. Through the use of distorted visual effects Tong Wang creates conflicts between physical world and virtual world, fear and brave，desperation and encouragement.These are the conflicts that she seeks to overcome, with work that yearns for both light and hope.
Founded in this special year of 2020, LATITUDE Gallery supports and represents young contemporary artists from not only china, asian and but all around the world, featuring avant-garde exhibitions and performances in a variety of media. Through diverse programs such as open calls, exhibitions, screenings, interviews, talks, art salons, workshops, and online presentations, we are dedicated to fostering a creative community, stimulating intellectual discussions, and engaging a wide range of audiences. As an art boutique and online platform, we provide far-reaching opportunities for artists and designers to explore new ways of selling and promoting their works.
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Website: www.latitudegalleryny.com/
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