Hanart TZ Gallery presents Mao Xuhui’s solo exhibition “Toppled Parent”, showcasing recent works by the artist. In his 2007 exhibition, “The Dusk of Passion,” Mao Xuhui looked back on his creative journey of nearly three decades, and made a panoramic presentation of the iconography of his artistic career, displaying his signature imagery across wide landscapes loomed over by a moody sky. The iconic monuments stand like sentinels across a temporal expanse, mapping the geography of the artist’s spiritual journey. In the open terrain the monuments suffer the erosion of the elements, and truly become relics of history. Icons of power do not tend to leave space for reflection, they want to claim full attention and occupy all space; but here they are pushed out into a vista to become reference points only, consumed by the breadth of time and space. History comes on stage and puts the icons in order. The imageries that have possessed the artist like nightmares in his long career have slowly pacified and begin to settle down. In the past decade Mao Xuhui has witnessed the passing of both his parents, seen the alignment of the avant-garde along the rationale of market forces, and experienced the gradual opening up of Chinese politics to social and economic demands. The world has visibly changed. Quietly the structure on which the Parent once stood shifted and turned, and the proliferating foliage of the garden has decorated this now-vacant seat with floral patterns. The Parent did not collapse all of a sudden; by the time people noticed, it was already resting peacefully on its side. It is undisputable that the toppled Parent will continue to determine the locus of reference for the human world, but the aesthetics of the toppled monument points to a different order of beauty.

-Hanart TZ Gallery

Image: © Mao Xuhui
Courtesy of the artist and Hanart TZ Gallery