“LOVE LETTERS”
JIANG ZHI SOLO EXHIBITION
26 May – 8 July 2012
Opening Reception: Saturday May 26th 4-7pm

M97 Gallery is pleased to present the exhibition “Love Letters”, the newest series of color photographs by artist JIANG Zhi (b. 1970). A selection of twenty medium and large-scale color photographs will show the artist’s poetic and eclectic approach to his photographic practice. “Love Letters” will be the Jiang Zhi’s second solo exhibition at M97 Gallery.

Jiang Zhi’s photographs consistently communicate with the viewer from the mind of a poet or writer. Poignant in meaning and stunning in their visual arrest, Jiang Zhi’s photographs continue to decode the meaning and fragility of the human heart, and are successful in speaking across native cultures to the greater global, human condition. Longing, memory, hope, love, fate, fatality, are all combined in the “Love Letters” series of photographs by the most simple and timeless of elements: flowers and flames.

The contemporary “Love Letters” Jiang Zhi presents here intrigue and surprise in part due to the use of such familiar symbols throughout the history of painting. Flowers, symbols of beauty, nature, purity and love, are consumed by the primal and symbolic fate of flames in which one can sense an equally timeless symbolism as well as violence or anger. Yet the true crux of Jiang Zhi’s “Love Letters” lies in the uncompromised beauty of the flowers, which never perishes, their concept and identity as objects of beauty remain intact, eternal, despite their imminent fate. Love and beauty, Jiang shows us, will also no doubt suffer a similar fate, yet even through the fire of confusion or circumstance or misfortune, the permanence and timelessness of love and beauty remain. These works are not only love letters, they are offerings, and remembrances, rage and consolation.

“Beautiful things and objects themselves will ultimately disappear, but the beauty itself will live on, as well as love. Perhaps this is what I am trying to express. This series of works is actually just that, a series of "Love Letters". Beauty, pain, transience and eternity, blossoming and wilting, passion and grace, dedication, giving and sacrifice ……These are all about love.” - Jiang Zhi

About JIANG Zhi
Jiang Zhi was born in Yuanjiang, China in 1971 and graduated from the China Academy of Fine Arts in Hangzhou. Among the numerous awards he has received along his career are: the Academic Achievement of Reshaping History (2010), the Chinese Contemporary Art Golden Palm (2009), the Asian New Force IFVA Critics Award (2001), and the Chinese Contemporary Art Award (CCAA) (2000). Generally considered one of China’s most diverse and avant-garde artists of his age, Jiang Zhi’s artistic practice ranges widely from oil painting, video, installation, sculpture and photography. A mid-career retrospective exhibition titled “If This Were A Man” curated by Bao Dong is currently on view at the Times Museum in Guangzhou.

About M97 Gallery
M97 Gallery is an independent photographic art gallery on Moganshan Road in central Shanghai. Established in 2006, M97 represents a range of important Chinese and international emerging and established artists. M97 is dedicated to promoting the understanding and appreciation for the art of photography in China.
Visit www.m97gallery.com for more information.
Permanent Exhibition URL : www.m97gallery.com