Zhang Enli: A Room That Can Move

From November 7, 2020, to March 7, 2021, the Power Station of Art (PSA) is hosting Zhang Enli: A Room That Can Move, the largest and most comprehensive solo exhibition to date by Chinese artist Zhang Enli. Curated by Hou Hanru, the retrospective will present more than 100 paintings spanning various stages of the artist’s 30-year career, as well as a number of his newly commissioned immersive painting installations (known as “Space Paintings”) for PSA.

The exhibition occupies the third and fifth floors of PSA and its outdoor deck, tracing Zhang Enli’s unceasing efforts in his adventurous painting path since the early 1990s through a non-linear curatorial approach. Zhang Enli’s paintings can be roughly divided into three parts: figurative paintings in the 1990s that focused on ordinary people and issues of their lives; still-life paintings after the millennium, mainly depicting “containers” that trace that passage of time; and more recently, abstract paintings that record memory and explore the subconscious. Since 2007, his “Space Painting” series has mobilized the viewer’s bodily experience amidst the symphony of time and space, thus stimulating the potential initiatives of painting, the oldest traditional medium, and pulling it in a new direction.

About the artist
Zhang Enli is a renowned Chinese contemporary artist, born in Jilin Province in 1965. He graduated from the Arts & Design Institute of Wuxi Technical University, China in 1989, and taught at the Arts and Design Institute of Donghua University. Now he lives and works in Shanghai. Zhang Enli’s works have been frequently displayed in major art institutions around the world, including solo shows at Galleria Borghese, Rome, Italy (2019), Firstsite, Colchester, UK (2018), The Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, UK (2013), the Shanghai Art Museum, China (2011), and the Kunsthalle Bern, Switzerland (2009), as well as group shows at the Fondazione Prada, Milan, Italy (2018), Museum of Contemporary Art, Antwerp, Belgium (2018), Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France (2016), Contemporary Art Museum PAC Milan, Italy (2015), and the Museum Lembroucke in Germany (2015), amongst many others. Zhang Enli was invited to take part in the 1st Antarctic Biennale (2017), the Gwangju Biennale (2010), the Kochi-Muziris Biennale (2012), the Yokohama Triennale (2014), the Shanghai Biennale (2008), and other international events. His works can be found in the collections of the Musée de Beauregard, Centre Georges Pompidou, Tate Modern, Royal Academy of Arts, M+ Museum, and Shanghai Art Museum.

About the curator
Hou Hanru is a prolific writer and curator based in Rome, Paris, and San Francisco. He is currently the Artistic Director of MAXXI (National Museum of 21st Century Arts and National Museum of Architecture), Rome, Italy. Hou Hanru has curated and co-curated around 100 exhibitions for the last two decades across the world, including: China/Avant-Garde (1989), Cities On The Move (1997–2000), The 2nd Johannesburg Biennial (1997), Shanghai Biennale (2000), Gwangju Biennale (2002), Venice Biennale (French Pavilion, 1999, Z.O.U. — Zone Of Urgency, 2003, Chinese Pavilion, 2007), the 2nd Guangzhou Triennial (2005), the 2nd Tirana Biennial (2005), the 10th Istanbul Biennial (2007), the 10th Lyon Biennale (Lyon, 2009), Power of Doubt (PhotoEspagna 2010, Madrid, Times Museum, Guangzhou, 2011), etc. He has been a consultant and advisor in many international institutions, including Deutsche Bank Collection (Frankfurt), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York), Times Museum of Contemporary Art (Guangzhou), Rockbund Art Museum (Shanghai), Kadist Art Foundation (San Francisco/Paris). He frequently contributes to various journals on contemporary art and culture and lectures and teaches in numerous international institutions, including Flash Art International, ARTCO Journal, Art Asia Pacific, and LEAP, etc. He also serves in juries of many international awards.
 

Curator: Hou Hanru
Date：November 7, 2020-March 7, 2021
Organizers：Power Station of Art (PSA)
Location：3rd & 5th Floor, PSA
Thanks: ShanghART Gallery, Hauser & Wirth, Xavier Hufkens