【Editor's Note】In recent years, more and more emerging contemporary galleries have been established in the north, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen, and have gradually shown a more diversified artistic activity than the traditional gallery operation form, quietly becoming a new force in the gallery industry. To this end, Artron Art Network & Art Headlines launched the "New Gallery Series" for galleries established since 2018 to discover and document more vivid gallery formats. What are these new galleries? What is its development background, growth drivers, and operating model? And how to combine the background of the self's resources with the artwork to produce benefits?
Wen | Li Jiali
The Horton Gallery, adjacent to Xiangyang South Road in the popular neighborhood, is a little out of place.
Since the specific location of the gallery cannot be searched on the map, most of the audiences with a less sensitive sense of smell need to call the manager Zou Yizhi and turn into the alley under her guidance to see the flowers and grasses, and there is a small sign hanging on the right side of the small door, which reads "Horton Gallery".
Horton Gallery in the alley
The Hüten in Hüten Gallery means guardian in German. For Zou Yizhi, this is a clean and pure small world of her own, and it is also an important field where she constantly finds, confirms and owns herself.
"The original intention of being a gallery is 'selfish'"
From the resume alone, Zou Yizhi can be regarded as a "slash youth". After graduating with an undergraduate degree in fashion design, I studied art again, and then I took an MBA that had no connection with the former two at all. Today, Zou Yizhi manages Horton Gallery while providing more original and competitive management consulting services for commercial clients.
Yizhi joked that the MBA degree did not allow her to "easily earn a hundred million", but she was grateful for the experience. "For me, the biggest value is to reverse my way of thinking and give me a more holistic view of the problem, and that's enough." Because I've always been afraid of becoming that kind of paranoid old man and then being eliminated by the times."
Inside the Horton Gallery
Horton Gallery was founded for the same purpose. Here, she can put daily reading and academic thinking into practice; at the same time, she can work with all parties, listen to different voices, let herself eliminate inertia, and continue to move forward in criticism. "I like the critical mechanism very much, because I have inertia in my thinking and can't criticize myself a lot of times. And I'm more of a listener and less self-esteem. So I really like that Horton Gallery can create this kind of opportunity to bring together everyone's voices/opinions and give me a more dimensional perspective."
Therefore, it can be said that Horton Gallery is Zou Yizhi's very private spiritual world and a platform for her to continuously achieve self-transcendence. "From this point of view, the establishment of Horton Gallery is actually a very selfish idea."
Few people know that before founding Hodon Gallery, Zou Yizhi was an artist. But unlike most artists who want their work to be shown/collected by institutions, she is disgusted that her work is displayed in a white box space. She said bluntly that it would be a bit stripped of the feeling of being watched. Her ideal space should be fluid, with a natural narrative, plain language, and the viewer and the artist on an equal footing.
So in 2019, Zou Yizhi, who came to Shanghai on a business trip, accidentally saw that a family at the intersection of Urumqi Middle Road and Fuxing Road had a space of only about 6 square meters, and suddenly realized, "The original small area can also exist as space." So, in this year, Zou Yizhi quickly found a small space in an old house on Fuxing Middle Road and began his career as a gallery.
2019-2022: Three clips
Because the first space is too small, the planning cannot be carried out. At this time, two friends wanted to set up an office in the city center, so the three of them hit it off and shared a floor in an apartment on Wuxing Road in November 2020.
"What to do, what to do" exhibition poster
On January 27, 2021, Tang Qiansheng's solo exhibition "What are you doing to do" opened at No. 250 Wuxing Road. This is an online project conducted through social platforms, where participants send signatures and emails to artists via social media, and the artists will sign "What are we doing?" What are we going to do? And the participant signed the new orange, took two images, the artist emailed the two pictures to the participant. In the project, each set of images corresponds to a specific orange, produced by the artist's labor, and the text depends on the native language of the participants.
Liu Baihan solo exhibition scene
On April 5, 2021, the solo exhibition "Liu Baihan" was launched, which explores feminism, fertility choices and future technology around the artist's three interactive works of art. During the period, three online dialogues with artists were also held, and Liu Baihan and three female artists discussed topics such as feminism, technology and art, and the survival status of female artists.
Halfway through the second exhibition, Zou Yizhi was told by the relevant departments that he had to move out immediately due to overcrowding on the floor. So in May 2021, Horton Gallery left Wuxing Road.
"Cheng Yuhan: Princess of Funanhe" exhibition site
In June of that year, Zou Yizhi took Horton Gallery and moved to its current address, No. 14, Lane 1295, Fuxing Middle Road, and from July 11 to August 15, he held the first exhibition after the relocation, "Cheng Yuhan: Princess of Funanhe".
Since then, the frequency of exhibitions at Horton Gallery has been fixed – every 1-2 months for one month.
"Two-person exhibition: a few feet away, in one room" exhibition site
From August 20 to September 20, 2021, Zou Yizhi held the "Double Exhibition: A Few Feet Away, Sharing a Room". From September 24 to October 24, Horton Gallery presented "Group Exhibition: Pain", featuring works by Chen Mo, Chen Xi, Feng Wuchao and Xu Sixing. These four, without exception, are young artists, and two of them are still studying for a master's degree. Pain pain, which means pain that is further produced by an individual because the pain cannot be understood by others or relieved by the self, attempts to explore the possibility of understanding between the individual and the other by presenting four answers and responses to pain.
"America Confused" exhibition site
On December 3, 2021, Horton Gallery hosted Lin Weijie's solo exhibition "American Confusion". The complete series of "American Confusion" was created by Lin Weijie over a period of two and a half years, including more than 300 photos, more than 20 poems, and 50,000 words of interviews, taking the phenomenon of "materialization" as the starting point, exploring the relationship between sex, love, identity and American society, and including the living conditions of marginalized groups in the United States, the living and sexual habits of LGBTQI people, and the views and thoughts of native Americans on society, equality, racism, and love.
"Hillary Johnson Solo Exhibition: Our Waters" exhibition scene
Time comes to 2022, February 11 to March 13, "Hillary Johnson Solo Exhibition: Our Waters" is presented. It is a global photography project consisting of black-and-white portraits of people immersed in water. Each participant goes through a guided process of surrendering to the water, realizing themselves through a profound healing of the deepest trauma.
From these, it is not difficult to see that the artists and exhibitions presented by Horton Gallery have some commonalities: young artists, especially post-90s artists, account for the majority, and most of them have cross-cultural educational backgrounds; artists and works pay attention to life feelings, daily life and human nature; the works are equal in posture, broad in perspective, full of compassion for the world, and have no arrogance.
"Horton Gallery is independent and pure"
Zou Yizhi did not want Horton Gallery to become a purely profit-oriented institution. Therefore, after constant exploration, outside the traditional gallery operating model, she decided to make a new attempt to maintain the independence and purity of Horton Gallery itself. In Yizhi's view, 'Profit should not be measured solely by money.' ’”
"Pain of Pain" exhibition site
When it comes to collaborating artists, she bluntly says she is "sensuous first." Before collaborating, she often insists on communicating with the artist first, and if the communication arouses her interest in the work, she will look at the work. "So in fact, looking at the work is a matter of the later stage of cooperation." I think the artist must first have a complete personality, be able to clearly express his mental state and world view, and understand his heart's direction. This is the core, and the work is only an extension. I'm interested in this core."
Because the operation of the gallery does not depend on the sale of works, the relationship between Horton Gallery and the artist is very wild - the cooperation between the two sides is often based on trust and equality, which makes the relationship between Zou Yizhi and the artist break through the timeliness of cooperation, and does not stick to serious communication and dialogue, but becomes a daily mode of getting along.
"Whether it is the direction of the exhibition or the future development, Horton Gallery does not make decisions for the artist, but only provides some conditions/information for the artist to choose."
In the planning of the exhibition, Horton Gallery also continues this wild, delicate and plump core. Unlike in-depth academic research on certain topics, Horton Gallery amplifies the role of emotion. There is a small room at the entrance of the exhibition hall, and a round table in the corner is lit with bamboo incense all year round, which makes the exhibition hall full of fresh and relaxed fun. The small exhibition hall is often divided into several small spaces, and there is quite a wisdom of Chinese gardens to see the big in the small. There is no fierce confrontation of curation, no sense of forced viewing, all the sharpness and intensity are wrapped in a plain narrative, making Horton Gallery present a tone like mountains and rivers.
It is also based on this empathy and tone that Zou Yizhi and the artist are very careful to manage the exhibition. Based on the most scholarly nature and in an artist-led manner, Horton Gallery has developed its own exhibition practice. "I believe that for artists, Horton Gallery's exhibitions/projects will not easily flow away from life, and they feel that they have done it and so on. There are many milestones in a person's life, and I want Horton Gallery to be a milestone in the artist's life, which is the mission of Horton Gallery."
Poster of the exhibition "Cheng Yuhan: Princess of Funanhe"
Horton Gallery does not accept sudden visits from visitors, and it adopts a reservation system for visits. Zou Yizhi said that this was because of the necessity of adjacent to Xiangyang South Road, because it was necessary to maintain the low-key operation of the gallery and the effectiveness of the audience. All of this gives Horton Gallery a very distinct personal color of Zou Yizhi - relaxed, delicate, empathetic ability, with undefined human nature as the core, showing different aspects of spiritual thinking in an internal way, wrapping sharp thinking in a seemingly bland narrative.
Therefore, Horton Gallery is more like a magnetic field with art as a medium than a traditional gallery, attracting friends with similar interests to sit down and have a very relaxed conversation. Zou Yizhi said she planted a seed at Horton Gallery:
"Although you don't know what flowers it will eventually bloom, it's good to plant it well."
Horton Gallery's latest exhibition "Can't Make You Disappear" poster
【Postscript】To this day, Horton Gallery has brought Zou Yizhi a lot of gains. From the initial groping forward, to the gradual clarity of vision and planning, Horton Gallery has gone through nearly 3 years. Zou Yizhi likes the current state, she said that it makes her feel very solid and comfortable.
In an interview, she said, "If you think you're a pervert or an outlier, it doesn't matter, because there will always be people who share your opinion." ”
Perhaps, Horton Gallery is not only caring for Zou Yizhi, but also the so-called abnormalities that are not tolerated by the world.