The Bund recreates "The King and Me"

Reporter Xu Wang reported in Shanghai

The Bund has always been known for its architecture of all nations. On January 9, an art exhibition called "The King and I" came to The Hushen Gallery at 3 The Bund. This theme exhibition debuted in the Palazzo princes in Milan last September, where nine artists from Italy, China, Japan and other countries used their creativity to stage a fantasy story about the royal palace in the palazzo princes. Now, the same exhibits have been moved to The Hushen Gallery almost as they were, adding a touch of Italian fairy tale to the exotic atmosphere along the Huangpu River.

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The artworks in the "King and Me" exhibition share a common feature – they are all related to the special fabric of alcantara. Alcantara, a haute couture material brand from Italy, invited artists to tailor artwork for the exhibition with the theme of "The King and Me" and the inspiration of alcantara fabrics.

Curator Le Dou said: "Artists know that they want to use this material to make works, they have the freedom to choose, accept or reject. Once they accept it, the material becomes a creative medium, and the medium of creation itself can be anything. ”

Nine artists responded to the theme of the exhibition by means of installation, video, photography and other artistic means.

The galleries of the Hushen Gallery are divided into two areas, one side is more storytelling, and the works have symbols of kings and castles, thus echoing the special venue of the Royal Palace of Milan.

The first thing that catches the eye is the work brought by gentukabini - "The Edge of the Royal Family", which is printed with ultra-realistic patterns of fabrics, folded and stacked on the ground and walls, creating a rich and gorgeous effect, echoing the decorative patterns of the palace, when the audience pulls the fabric into it, they can see the complex interior. Arthurarbesser's The Frog King is a fountain wrapped in material printed with cloud motifs, and viewers can see their reflections by stepping on the shoes of princes and princesses. The Emperor's New Clothes are six life-size chess pieces wrapped in fabrics decorated with abelsser design motifs. Through scene reproduction, the artist reinterprets two classic fairy tales.

The other part of the exhibition is more abstract, with Japanese photographer Taisuke Oyama covering the Z-shaped wall with photographs printed on special materials and Hanemüller paper, while the three vertical elements together create a completely enclosed optical illusion, blurring the boundary between real materials and reproductions. Created by Maurizioanzeri, "The Prince's Game" is a huge screen composed of faces that give the viewer a sense of oppression, both charming and eerie.

Francescosimeti's Xanadu, while not the largest, attracts attention with its rich details. Fixed or moving panels are decorated with exotic motifs, like marco Polo's depiction of a city built by Kublai Khan, which are interlaced to create the effect of an eighteenth-century theater stage.

Diverse expressions in different spaces

At a press conference on opening day, Andreaboragno, CEO of Alcantara, who sponsored the exhibition, said: "The difficulty of this exhibition is how to move the things of the royal palace into another venue. ”

At the beginning of the planning of the exhibition "The King and Me", it was decided to hold it in the Palazzo Princes of Milan. After receiving the invitation, the artist also went to the palace to see it before creating. Therefore, in a sense, many of the works in the exhibition are "tailor-made" for the royal palace.

"When we started creating 'The King and Me' with artists in Milan, we asked ourselves a few questions: If these site-specific works and ancient rooms were moved to a completely new venue, how would the artists transform and recreate them? Considering that it needs to take place in another historic building overlooking another historic city, how can the artist reconstruct it in another space? These ideas eventually became the original intention of bringing the exhibition to Shanghai. Curator Le Soybean said.

The Palazzo reale was the seat of government in many medieval Italian cities, and today it is an important cultural center of Italy, and the palatial architecture of the palace provides an excellent venue for numerous fairs and exhibitions. When exhibited at the Palazzo Reale in Milan, the works of the nine artists are scattered in the seven rooms of the Principe, with a stronger sense of logical relationship and space. Most of the works in this exhibition can be touched directly, while the separate rooms also add to the intimate sense of the interactive experience between the audience and the artworks.

As a veteran gallery in Shanghai, although Hushen Gallery has a space of 1,000 square meters sufficient to place works, the space is more transparent, only the pillars block the line of sight, and there is no strong sense of space cutting, which makes the progressive relationship between works dilute.

In Le Dou's view, differentiated expression is also the attraction of converting the exhibition venue: "Here (Hushen Gallery) there is a blank space, especially abstract, visually cleaner, so moving over is not a big problem." Not all works of art can be moved to another place for exhibition, but works that can be moved, when they go to another place, have more space for exploration and room for expression. (Editor Dong Mingjie Xu Wang)