Images of Society

A section from the montage of images by Zhang Xiaodi, who won the talent award at the annual "Focus on Talents" art project. Provided to China Daily

An ongoing exhibition showcases art pieces that reflect keen observation of life. They are works of 10 emerging artists under the age of 30. Zhang Zixuan reports.

The Today Art Museum and Martell Art Fund have jointly announced the finalists and winner of the third "Focus on Talents" art project and held an exhibition to spotlight these new talents.

Launched in 2010, the art project is an annual non-profit award targeted at emerging artists under the age of 30 who have been engaged in art for more than two years.

"The last two years, we received projects that contain great intensity. But this year, the works are a lot calmer," comments Tan Ping, deputy director of Central Academy of Fine Arts and chairman of the jury.

Today Art Museum director Hsieh Su-chen says the young artists have not fully figured out what is the best way to express themselves. "But such immaturity is the most exciting and hopeful part," she says.

Dong Bingfeng, curator of the finalist exhibition, says the art project has lowered all the thresholds to encourage more creative ideas, materials and spaces.

"Our key criteria is, the art must reflect keen observation of society," Dong stresses. The other criteria include standards of creativity, imagination, insight, expression and experimentation.

The 10 finalists are: Chen Chenchen, Chu Bingchao, Gao Shengjie, Gao Su, He Shiyi, Lei Lei, Lu Yanxiang, Tong Xiao, Xu Sheng and Zhang Xiaodi. They were selected from more than 500 entries.

The talent award went to Zhang Xiaodi after the jury had three rounds of discussion. He received a grant from Martell Art Fund and he can choose to use the grant to either hold a solo exhibition or participate in an overseas art exchange program.

Zhang made a montage by overlaying images he captured in the last two years, to "copy the life of theater and make the reality surreal".

"Many artists used new-form presentations this year instead of traditional methods such as painting and sculpture. And they have better understandings of space," Dong says.

For example, artist Chu Bingchao spread three 12-meter-long and 1.8-meter-wide sheets of carbon paper on a street, to document vehicle tracks from 5 am to 6 pm on June 17, 2012. He also recorded the sound.

"By doing this I projected my perception of time and space," Chu explains.

Similarly, he used carbon paper and video to document his sleep. And he used gypsum powder to capture sea waves and rain.

Artist Lei Lei and French collector Thomas Sauvin accumulated more than 500,000 35-mm color film negatives, which captured moments of ordinary life. They made an animation by using about 3,000 photos developed and chosen from those negatives, which they collected from recycling stations in Beijing

The film won the best non-narrative short in 2013 Holland Animation Film Festival.

The exhibition will last until May 27.