Tang Dixin: Performance

30 SEP - 21 OCT 2020
  • Images: “Rest is the best way of revolution”, Ota Fine Arts Tokyo, 2014, Courtesy of the Artist and Ota Fine...
    Images: “Rest is the best way of revolution”, Ota Fine Arts Tokyo, 2014, Courtesy of the Artist and Ota Fine...
    Images: “Rest is the best way of revolution”, Ota Fine Arts Tokyo, 2014, Courtesy of the Artist and Ota Fine...
    Images: “Rest is the best way of revolution”, Ota Fine Arts Tokyo, 2014, Courtesy of the Artist and Ota Fine...
    Images: “Rest is the best way of revolution”, Ota Fine Arts Tokyo, 2014, Courtesy of the Artist and Ota Fine...
    Images: “Rest is the best way of revolution”, Ota Fine Arts Tokyo, 2014, Courtesy of the Artist and Ota Fine...

    Images: “Rest is the best way of revolution”, Ota Fine Arts Tokyo, 2014, Courtesy of the Artist and Ota Fine Arts

    “Mr. Hungry No.1”, AIKE Gallery, 2014, Courtesy of the Artist and AIKE Gallery

  • Artist Tang Dixin practices multiple artistic forms such as performance, painting, and installation. In his performance works, he often considers his own body or the bodies of others as his medium. Through this, he explores the correlations and interactions of the individual and society, by placing them or himself in extreme situations and hence creating ultimate forms of tension that are both dramatic and challenging. This can be observed in his performance work Rest is the best way of revolution(2013 - ongoing) where he invites viewers to have a good rest by wrapping a part of their body in a cast and hence restricting their movements. In Mr. Hungry No.1 (2014), he focuses on exploring spatial attributes. Within the confines of a gallery space, with the front door as his starting point, an ice pick in his hand, and crampons attached to his shoes, Tang scaled the 4-meters-high walls. One soon realizes the premise that the artist had set for himself: To move across the gallery space without touching the floor. Tang moved horizontally across the walls, occasionally stopping on ledges to take short rests, leaving large holes on the walls gouged out by this ice picks. 

  • “FOR ME, THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PERFORMANCE AND ACTING IS THAT PERFORMANCE PRESENTS AN ACT THAT IS EXPERIENCED FIRSTHAND BY THE BODY, IT IS SIMILAR TO A MOVEMENT THAT HAPPENS IN REALITY.”

    — TANG DIXIN

  • As an initiator, Tang has continually conceived out-of-the-box ideas that push boundaries. From launching the “Huge Huge” residency project at... As an initiator, Tang has continually conceived out-of-the-box ideas that push boundaries. From launching the “Huge Huge” residency project at...

    As an initiator, Tang has continually conceived out-of-the-box ideas that push boundaries. From launching the “Huge Huge” residency project at Sifang Art Museum, Nanjing (2018), where he invited more than twenty young artists to live together and to create artworks collectively, to curating “The Force Temple” exhibition at Tank Shanghai where they presented a performance that combined elements of both visual and performing arts, Tang is a talented and radical collaborator, performing the role of a catalyst by initiating alternative ways for artists to collaborate.

     

    Images: “Huge Huge” residency project, Sifang Art Museum, 2018, Courtesy of the Artist and Sifang Art Museum

  • Tang once mentioned in an interview that when performance drains him of all energy, making paintings tends to calm him down. In the beginning of 2020, Tang moved to a new studio situated within a factory, located in the outskirts of Shanghai. Compared to his small studio in the city centre previously, this large space with high ceilings and natural light brought a new sense of freedom to the artist. 

     
  • Images: Tang Dixin’s Studio, 2020 ©Tang Dixin, Courtesy of the Artist

  • Like his performance works, Tang’s paintings possess strong and recognizable characteristics. Vibrant hues of orange and bold tones of blue...

    Tang Dixin, Violent Torso, 2015, Oil on canvas, 200 x 200 cm  ©Tang Dixin

     

     

    Like his performance works, Tang’s paintings possess strong and recognizable characteristics. Vibrant hues of orange and bold tones of blue illustrate vivid expressions of human bodies in bizarre situations. Tang’s paintings and performances tend to reflect and complement one another: both explore the body with different approaches. In his paintings, Tang is able to express that which cannot be achieved physically, as seen in his work Violent Torso (2014), where human bodies and skeletons seem to be twisted or entangled in unimaginable ways, alternating between the possible and the impossible. 

  • Installation views: “Tang Dixin”, Ota Fine Arts Tokyo, 2018, Courtesy of Ota Fine Arts

  • AVAILABLE WORKS

    • Tang Dixin Two Bodies, 2020 Oil on canvas 152.6 x 122.5 cm
      Tang Dixin
      Two Bodies, 2020
      Oil on canvas
      152.6 x 122.5 cm
    • Tang Dixin Drunkard, 2015 Oil on canvas 60.5 x 50.3 cm
      Tang Dixin
      Drunkard, 2015
      Oil on canvas
      60.5 x 50.3 cm
    • Tang Dixin Blowing White, 2016 Oil on canvas 150 x 200 cm
      Tang Dixin
      Blowing White, 2016
      Oil on canvas
      150 x 200 cm
      USD 38,000.-
  • ABOUT THE ARTIST

    Tang Dixin (b. 1982, Hangzhou, China) lives and works in Shanghai. In 2005, he graduated from the Faculty of Painting, Shanghai Normal University, China. Tang’s solo exhibitions include “Tang Dixin”(2018), Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo, Japan, “Tang Dixin” (2017), AIKE Gallery, Shanghai, China, “Tang Dixin: Dog Bark” (2015), Ota Fine Arts, Singapore, “Mr. Hungry” (2014), AIKE-DELLARCO, Shanghai, China and “Tang Dixin” (2014), Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo, Japan. He has also participated in notable group exhibitions such as “Embodied Mirror: Performances in Chinese Video Art” (2020), New Century Art Foundation, Beijing, China, “Straits” (2020) Ota Fine Arts, Singapore, “The Force Temple” (2019), TANK, Shanghai, China, “EXIT PLAN” (2019), SNAP, Shanghai, China, “… of …, at…h, at…, in….” (2018), Sifang Art Museum, Nanjing, China, “Two House” (2018), NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore, Singapore, “RAM HIGHLIGHT 2017: Displace” (2017), Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai, China, “China 2185” (2017), Sadie Coles, London, “Mountain Sites: View of Laoshan” (2016), Sifang Art Museum, Nanjing, China, “Turning Point: Contemporary Art In China Since 2000” (2016), Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai, China, “Jing Shen – The act of painting in contemporary China” (2015), PAC Museum of Contemporary Art, Milan, Italy, “Mr Hungry” (2015), Asia Contemporary Art Week (ACAW), New York, U.S.A., “10th Gwangju Biennale – Burning Down the House” (2014), Gwangju, Korea, “Revel – Celebrating MoCA’s 8 Years in Shanghai” (2013), Museum of Contemporary Art, Shanghai, China, and “ON | OFF China’s Young Artists in Concept and Practice” (2013), Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, China.

     

    To learn more about the artist, please click here.