Curated by Xia Jifeng

Artist: Chen Fei, Yang Tsung FAN, Gong Chenyu, Ji Xin, Li Qing, Li Weiyi, Ni Youyu, Pu Yingwei, Wang He, Wang Wenting, Xia Yu, Zhang Yingnan

Hive Center for Contemporary Art is delighted to announce the opening of the second chapter of a trilogy of exhibitions at our gallery on the Bund, following the group exhibition, Row the Boat as You Wish, which focused on post-70s artists. The second chapter of the trilogy, Silhouette of Splendors, is a group exhibition featuring 12 iconic artists of the post-80s generation, including Chen Fei, Yang Tsung Fan, Gong Chenyu, Ji Xin, Li Qing, Li Weiyi, Ni Youyu, Pu Yingwei, Wang He, Wang Wenting, Xia Yu, Zhang Yingnan. Compared to the post-70s artists who have made their debut in academia and the market, the post-80s are in a state of flux with more uncertainties and enormous potential.

The post-80s generation was profiled by the times, and the custom of distinguishing generations based on the concept of a decade gradually emerged after the notions of the 80s. The first generation following the market economy’s maturation, they are entrusted with significant societal expectations and simultaneously accompanied by profound reflections on the transformations and torrents of the era experienced by their predecessors. Their nature of rebellion, self-awareness and defiance are granted by the times. Leveraging on the structure of the Internet era and an entrepreneurial trend, the excitement and stimulation of early globalization have also encouraged post-80s Chinese artists to develop the ambition and possibility to strive and collide with the global art scene.

The radical changes in the outside world have led post-80s artists to be categorized by various phenomena and terminologies. Definitions, from the cartoon generation to the post-Internet, then to futurism, have failed to summarize and delimit the spirit of the epoch and breakthrough of this generation of artists comprehensively; they have also been repeatedly broken free by the artists in different manners and dimensions, thereby developing many autonomous and distinctive individuals. The post-80s generation is like a cluster of stars, scattered yet sparkling independently, constantly outlining their broken but dazzling silhouettes in the cycle of cultivation and refinement from the beginning to the end.

In contrast to the mentality of globalization and global citizenship of the post-90s generation, the post-80s bears more responsibility and qualifications to establish the subjectivity of contemporary Chinese art; this generation values their cultural and artistic heritage and locality and situates them in a global structure to identify and examine their intrinsic significance and the possibility of integrating them into the global context of contemporary art. This exhibition, exemplifying the post-80s, is rather an interception of the spirit of the era by artists belonging to a specific generation. The artists are gathered in a theatre of time where their respective attitudes are connected, and each of them will act as a protagonist to interpret their personal temporal and spatial threads while simultaneously tracing out an abstract silhouette together. Under this silhouette, the most dynamic creative expressions of the present and the ecological evolution and tendency in contemporary Chinese art are fully disclosed.