Artists introduce Chinese culture to American audiences in group show

The Klein Sun Gallery in Chelsea is currently presenting a traveling group exhibition titled UP-YOUTH in collaboration with the Times Art Museum in Beijing, where it was on view last summer.show offers work by Li Bo, Ma Wenting, Mo Xiliang, Yang Peng, and Zheng Zicheng. Each of the artists brings to life the customs and traditions of Chinese culture with his or her own personal style.

For instance, Li Bo possesses a desire to be as diverse as possible as he’s constantly experimenting with different mediums and styles. One of his most intriguing works in the show is White in Dark Grey No. 3 which is a mixed media installation inspired by a street sign seen in his native country. The actual street sign is painted onto concrete which Bo then broke and then divided it into 16 blocks containing parts of a bicycle stuck together but the parts are out of order forming a broken image, like a puzzle that needs to be solved. The deconstructed bicycle is symbolic of a rapidly changing Chinese society.

Willy, Why Do You Cry? by Ma Wenting

 Another work in the show that depicts cultural shifts is a painting by Ma Wenting titled Willy, Why Do You Cry? which is set in a classroom. The scene inside the classroom is quite chaotic as it’s filled with fallen trees, plants, children’s toys including cars, airplanes, and building blocks scattered on the floor to illustrate the facts that the room has not been in use for quite a long time. A young man, presumably a student in that classroom many years ago faces the front of the room where there’s a blackboard with the words “Willy, Why do you cry?, then the words “Why do you Cry?” “Why Why Why?” on the bottom. Usually, the blackboard is a platform for one to present educational information, though the message displayed in Wenting’s piece asks a question that perhaps there can be no correct or sensible answer to representing the balance between rational and irrational.

Mo Xiliang combines both traditional and contemporary elements into many of his works. His painting Must Trap The Paper Tiger depicts the creature confined to a transparent cage on the edge of a cliff with a flowing river of water behind him. Zheng Zicheng unveils several oil paintings that revolve around global and societal issues. One piece titled Beautiful New World illustrates a group of people gathered in an open space appearing very deep in thought as they try to put a puzzle together of the seven continents of the world. The rainbow colors of the shapes that represent the continents symbolize an idealistic universe and serve as a stark contrast to the muted grey background and the black and white clothes that the people are wearing.

Yang Peng also presents a series of oil paintings where she mostly portrays female models whose eyes are covered and whose bodies are turned away from the viewer to illustrate attempts to disconnect with the public and to focus on self-perception. One notable painting titled Face to Face depicts two identical young women directly across from one another like a mirror image as they’re posing the exact same way wearing lavish red dresses and blindfolds over the eyes and reaching out their arms to the other forming the shape of an X.

At the Klein Sun Gallery, 525 W. 25th St., through Aug. 8. The gallery is open Mon.—Sat. from 10 a.m. until 6 p.m.