Xie Nanxing: f o r a d e c a s a
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Overview
Capitain Petzel is pleased to announce f o r a d e c a s a, a solo exhibition of paintings by Xie Nanxing (b. 1970, Chongqing) opening as part of Gallery Weekend Berlin 2024.
f o r a d e c a s a is comprised of eight paintings which represent a complete body of work. The title, an abstraction of the Portuguese “fora de casa”, as in “jogo fora de casa” – the away game – reveals this series’ origins: while visiting Lisbon Xie came across a notebook, the vibrant green pages of which were each marked with the lines of a football pitch. Perhaps a fun gift for the child whose bedroom walls are adorned with posters of footballers, or possibly a serious tool for the tactician for whom each match is an obsession. The markings of the football pitch – rendered most clearly against a comparable green background in f o r a d e c a s a # 1 – became the basis for this group of paintings, both as a loosely interpreted formal structure for each new work and as a catalyst for their content.
Within the Chinese modern art scene, Xie Nanxing has carved out a special place for himself. The artist has explored the infinite possibilities of painting over the course of his decades-long practice. From his photorealist self-portraits and male nudities that he displayed at the 48th Venice Biennale in 1999, just three years after graduating from the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, to his out-of-focus renderings of nocturnal gardens, which he presented at documenta 12 in Kassel in 2007.
Recent and notable solo and group exhibitions include Sigg Prize at M+, Hong Kong (2023-2024); UCCA Edge, Beijing (2023); Beijing Bienniale (2022); Art Museum of Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, Chongqing (2021); Song Art Museum, Beijing (2020); Hive Center For Contemporary Art, Beijing (2020); Württembergischer Kunstverein, Stuttgart (2019); MAK Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna (2019); Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing (2018); Red Brick Art Museum, Beijing (2016); Museum of Contemporary Art Chengdu (2016); Today Art Museum, Beijing (2016); Shanghai 21st Century Minsheng Art Museum (2015); OCT Contemporary Art Terminal (OCAT), Shenzhen (2014); Centro di Cultura Contemporanea Strozzina (CCCS), Palazzo Strozzi, Florence (2010); Kunsthalle Basel (2002); documenta 12, Kassel (2007); Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof (2005); Manchester Art Gallery (2003) and La Biennale di Venezia, 48. Esposizione Internationale d’Arte, Venice (1999).
Nanxing’s work is included in renowned international contemporary art collections, among them M+Museum, Hong Kong; the Rachofsky Collection, Dallas TX; Start Museum, Shanghai; Sammlung Goetz, Munich and By Art Matters, Hangzhou.
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Installation Views
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Xie Nanxing
f o r a d e c a s a #1, 2020Oil on canvas
180 x 256 cm
70.9 x 100.8 inches -
Football is a paradox. So trivial yet so serious. It is not a matter of life and death, the great Liverpool manager Bill Shankly reputedly said: it is much more important than that. Or perhaps it is a simple game. Twenty-two men chase a ball for 90 minutes and at the end, said Gary Lineker, the Germans always win. Painting is also a paradox, at least for Xie Nanxing. It is not the truth, he has said, but neither is it just a game. It is “more like a game that is close to the truth, or rather a truth-mimicking game”. He has expressed a “mistrust” of painting, and yet he has spent the last three decades engaged in a deliberate and meticulous studio painting practice.
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Xie Nanxing
f o r a d e c a s a #2, 2020Oil on canvas
180 x 270 cm
70.9 x 106.3 inches -
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At the heart of f o r a d e c a s a is a revelation: Xie, who resisted adherence to a single style, embraced the innovative "canvas print" technique, which has been a pillar of his work for over fifteen years. Heralding a break from his previous works, his paintings create a paradoxical dance between regard for tradition and bold investigation. Drawing inspiration from traditional Chinese ink painting, the "canvas print" method constitutes a study of the penetration of color.
This process entails initially painting on a stretched canvas, then overlying it with an unstretched canvas layer upon which a more realistic image is painted. Upon scraping away this upper layer, traces of paint permeate through to the underlying surface, yielding what Xie aptly terms "an organic result" – a creation reminiscent of the original yet markedly distinct, imbued with an enigmatic quality that defies categorization as either abstract or realistic. These residual imprints, these ephemeral vestiges, now become the focal point, rejecting conventional notions of representation, are now the subject.
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Xie Nanxing
f o r a d e c a s a #4, 2020Oil on canvas
120 x 260 cm
47.2 x 102.4 inches -
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In this series Xie Nanxing embraces sheer painterly bravura, albeit interrupted by football scorecards, while in overtly citing Goya’s The Sleep Of Reason Produces Monsters (and not for the first time) Xie embraces his work’s place in a longer tradition of painting. Some paintings suggest abstraction, but others are uncharacteristically direct in their figuration. A football match can be tense and tactical, but it can also be an explosion of excitement. Catenaccio or heavy metal football.
“Xie Nanxing’s paintings cannot be cast in the camps of either aestheticized objecthood or conceptual dematerialization”, the curator and art historian Ruth Noack has acutely observed, “they hover firmly in between”.
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When I paint something new, the mark that has come from my hand or my mind demands that I study it, that I analyse and try to understand it. Then finally, perhaps, I can make use of it. This process brings me closer to my thoughts and putting all of this into my work helps to create more layers and more possibilities.
– Xie Nanxing -
Xie Nanxing
f o r a d e c a s a #8, 2020Oil on canvas
160 x 200 cm
63 x 78.7 inches -
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Berliner Zeitung: Diese Ausstellungen sollte man beim 20. Gallery Weekend Berlin nicht verpassen! (Xie Nanxing)
26 April 2024 -
Monopol: "Rundgang zum Gallery Weekend Berlin Wohin in Mitte?" (Xie Nanxing)
24 April 2024 -
Artsy: "8 MUST-SEE SHOWS AT BERLIN GALLERY WEEKEND 2024" (Xie Nanxing)
24 April 2024
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