Curated by Beijing-based art critic Maya Kóvskaya, "Multiple Realities" examines the rhizomatically recursive and polyvalent nature of the world in which we live, through the multidisciplinary art practices of 11 contemporary artists, using oil painting, video, mixed media installation, sculpture, experimental ink wash, and light box photography installation to investigate the multiplicity at the core of the human condition. The concept of "multiple realities" speaks to rhizomatic processes of juxtaposition and paradox, duality and inversion, mimesis and recursion, which animate the artistic languages and conceptual investigations of these artists' works. Works include Xia Jing's caged, decapitated, behemoth Buddha—that icon of transcendence and harmony with nature—cast in compressed coal—the quintessential symbol of humanity's short-sighted, destructive dependence on the ongoing exploitation of nature; Tao Aimin's stunning ink wash installation made from "rubbings" of the labor-worn wooden washboards of rural women, whose ceaseless mundane, manual labor marks the passage of their lives; Michael Zheng's recursive hole in the wall that isn't quite what it seems;  Feng Shu's stylized, elegant ceramic and metal insects who may outlast us all; Zheng Lu's bombs made from vermilion "double happiness" characters, typically used to symbolize newlywed bliss; Sun Huiyuan's inverted AK47s that asked the spectator to gaze down the bullet-hole of the barrel of the gun and confront the violence of the human condition; Zhou Xiaohu's interpenetrating realities in his dual channel video work, "Conspiracy;" Sun Xun's sophisticated animation videos that project apocalyptic take-overs and possible futures for humanity; Weng Yunpeng's conceptual paintings that juxtapose the local and the global; Li Qing's painting and photography mixed media work, "Monument" from his Collision series, in which we consider the shifting meanings of national monuments and the complex histories they symbolize in reference to one another; and Han Bing's ethereal inverted images of glamorous high-rises, shantytowns and construction sites rising in the reflections of Beijing's ubiquitous, pollution-infested, garbage-clogged "stinky rivers," that capture China's fantasy of modernization—both "the detritus and the dream"—set off in sharp relief within a single image.

Curator Bio

Maya Kóvskaya is a Beijing-based writer, art critic and curator with over a decade of experience living in China. She has curated numerous exhibitions, including, most recently, China Under Construction II at the 2008 Fotofest 12th International Photography Biennial (USA, 2008), worked with the Asia Triennial Manchester ATM08 (curatorial liaison for the project at The International 3, UK, 2008); curated China Under Construction I, at Art Houston (USA, 2007); Age of Big Construction (PRC, 2007); The Fatalistic Language of Things (USA, 2007); On the Stage of Modernization (USA, 2007); The Fragmented Gaze: Video Art from the People's Republic (USA, 2007); Love in the Age of Big Construction (PRC and USA, 2006); Quotidian Iconic (curatorial coordinator, PRC, 2006); The Other Shore of Desire (USA, 2006) Estrangements and Engagements: Contemporary Chinese Video Art (Canada, 2006), Misalignments: Chinese Performance and Video Art Documenta (USA, 2006), Other Modernities (USA, 2006), and others. Upcoming exhibitions include, China on the Road (Brussels, 02.2009), and Action—Camera! Beijing Performance Photography at the Morris and Helen Belkin Gallery, for which she is curatorial coordinator (Canada, 2009). Her writing has appeared in English, Chinese, Japanese, French, Catalan and Spanish in numerous art catalogues, academic volumes, and magazines, such as Flash Art, Contemporary, Yishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art, Art Post, Art iT, Art Map, Art Manager, Eyemazing: International Contemporary Photography Magazine, and positions: east asia cultures critique. Her book on Chinese contemporary art, China Under Construction: Contemporary Art from the People's Republic (2007) is available in bookstores worldwide.