Jian-Jun Zhang

Christian Duvernois Gallery is pleased to present a solo exhibition of the highly acclaimed Chinese, Shanghai based artist Jian-Jun Zhang.

The exhibition brings together a selection of Zhang’s works created since 1991, presenting the artist’s intricate and multifaceted practice in various media. By using ink, oil paint, acrylic, natural materials and rice or translucent papers, he poetically speaks about space, time, cultural legacies and environment. The works reference traditional Chinese landscape and ink painting as much as Western abstraction art history. Zhang’s contemplative compositions, playfully occupying the space between figuration and abstraction, embody uncertainty and emphasize the process of transformation, metaphorically relating to the artist’s preoccupations with Chinese history and most recent times.

Water is the most prominent motif in the works exhibited; it stands as a symbol for transparency, permeability, mobility and omnipresence, calling for the viewer’s immersion and reflection. Besides the two dimensional compositions, the exhibition also includes a video and one of Zhang’s widely praised silicone rubber sculptures, which both comment on man’s relationship to nature.

Jian-Jun Zhang’s works are in major private and public collections in the United States, Europe, and Asia. His work has been featured in numerous publications and presented through solo and group exhibitions, at the institutions such as The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York; Power Station of Art, Shanghai, China; Yuz Museum, Shanghai, China; Guangdong Museum of Art; Guangzhou, China; Contemporary Art Museum, Rome, Italy; Kunstmuseum, Lucern, Switzerland; Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, California; Dresden Art Museum, Dresden, Germany; and Socrates Sculpture Park, New York, New York, among others. Zhang also participated in major exhibitions such as The First Shanghai Biennale (Shanghai Art Museum, China, 1996); Markers (Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy, 2001); The Fourth Shanghai Biennale (Shanghai Art Museum, China, 2002); The 5th Gwangju Biennale (Gwangju, Korea, 2004); and Voice of the Unseen: Chinese Independent Art 1979 – Today (Arsenale, Venice Biennale Collateral Exhibition, Venice, Italy, 2013).

/About Christian Duvernois Landscape/Gallery

The Christian Duvernois Gallery exhibits works that explore themes relating to landscape and the environment through a variety of visual mediums, such as painting, sculpture, photography, and multimedia. The Christian Duvernois Gallery represents a select group of international contemporary artists whose work creates a dialogue exploring divergent ideologies of place and nature. Along with a quarterly rotation of exhibited pieces, there will also be limited editions of artists' garden installations.

Serving as a laboratory for large-scale museum exhibitions, the Christian Duvernois Gallery combines diverse angles of art with historical context, presenting not only contemporary pieces but also prominent works from the European Post-War Abstraction movement.

/About Christian Duvernois, Director

Born in Paris, Christian Duvernois has distinguished himself as a gallery owner, landscape designer, and lecturer. In 1981, Christian moved from Paris to New York City and opened an art gallery on Madison Avenue called Façade. Well-known by art circles in both New York and Europe, Façade specialized in classical and contemporary architectural and landscape design. The gallery featured paintings, sculptures, photographs, and architectural drawings that explored the various aspects of man’s relationship with his natural environment.

Since 2001, Christian has operated a landscape design studio specializing in high-end residential gardens, while remaining active as a private dealer of works of art related to landscape and nature. In 2008 he published a book, Marie Antoinette and the Last Garden of Versailles, and is currently researching for a book on the Kitchen Garden at Versailles.

/About Isabelle Leroy-Jay Lemaistre, Curatorial Advisor

Isabelle Leroy-Jay Lemaistre has served as curator at the Sculpture Department and head of 19th century sculpture at the Louvre Museum since 1979. She has been involved in major exhibitions at the Louvre and at prominent institutions such as the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, the Forbidden City, Beijing, the National Palace Museum, Taipei, and the State Historical Museum, Moscow.

/About Zeljka Himbele Kozul, Gallery Director

Zeljka Himbele Kozul has been working with contemporary art for numerous years. She is a graduate of the prestigious Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, US. She held positions at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb, Croatia and the Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, Rhode Island. Also, she curated exhibitions at Stephan Stoyanov Gallery, New York, NY; Art in General, New York, NY; NURTUREart, Brooklyn, NY; Big Medium Gallery, Austin, TX; Dorsky Gallery Curatorial Program, Long Island City, NY; Cuchifritos, New York, NY; Occurrence, Montreal, Canada; and Karlin Studios, Prague, Czech Republic, among many others.