Osage is pleased to present the Chinese artist Jiang Zhi’s first solo exhibition in Hong Kong, On The White.

Jiang Zhi is a poet whose ruminations on the metaphysical aspects of art and life find extraordinary expression in video, installation and photography.

The opening lines of Aristotle’s “Metaphysics” may have been written for Jiang Zhi.  “All men by nature desire to know. An indication of this is the delight we take in our senses, for even apart from their usefulness they are loved for themselves, and above all others the sense of sight. For not only with a view to action, but even when we are not going to do anything, we prefer seeing to everything else. The reason is that this, most of all the senses, makes us know and brings to light many differences between things.”

Jiang Zhi delights in exploring our senses in order to bring to light the differences between things.

His work is concerned with the expressive power of art.  It strives to be independent of mere intelligence and to become a matter of pure perception.  He is more concerned with form and matter than he is with subject or material.  His artworks combine both sense and sensibility in a direct appeal to our imaginative reason.

Jiang Zhi is one of the most thought-provoking artists of his generation to have emerged from mainland China. His ruminations on the metaphysical aspects of art and life find extraordinary expression in photography, video and installation which will be showcased in this new exhibition at Osage Kwun Tong. His works combine both sense and sensibility in a direct appeal to our imaginative reason. Born in 1971, Jiang Zhi has exhibited prominently in Europe, The United States of America, and Asia, notably in Mediations Biennale 2008 (Poznan, Poland, 2008),"Reflective Asia" Nanjing Triennial Exhibition（Nanjing Museum, China, 2008）, Shanghai Art Fair of International Contemporary Art Exhibition “Best Discovery Section” (Shanghai, China, 2007), We Are Your Future: Special Project of the 2nd Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art (Art Center Winzavod, Moscow, Russia, 2007), Chinese Whispers (Osage Kwun Tong, Hong Kong, China, 2007), The 2nd Guangzhou Triennial of Art (Guang Dong Art Museum, Guangzhou, China, 2005), The 4th Gwangiu Biennale Exhibition (Gwangiu, South Korea, 2002), The 1st Guangzhou Triennial of Art, Guangdong Art Museum (Guangzhou, China, 2002).

Jiang Zhi’s works explore grand themes and personal narratives in surprising and unconventional ways.  His creative breakthroughs in his material choices give voice to subtle nuances and a wide range of readings of his work.  The video work “The Beginning of the Universe” uses fireworks to explore subjective fate.  Where there is a beginning, there is also an end.  The installation “If by life you were deceived” uses dust as a symbol of man’s insignificance and the eternity of time.  In “I am your poetry No. 9 I dedicate all my looks to you” he uses silicon gel to make objects that comment on fashion, the body, freedom, fetishization and consumerism.  His new series of photographs are an introspective examination of confrontation, entanglement, coexistence and contradictions.

The exhibition is accompanied by a lavishly illustrated book that chronicles Jiang Zhi’s extraordinary body of work to date with essays by Cheo Chai Hiang, Isabel Ching, Fu Xiaodong, Qiu Zhijie, Sun Dongdong, Jonathan Thomson and Zhu Dake.