Bio + Artist statement
Rengu Zhang is a New York-based Chinese-born artist working in drawing, sculpture, moving image and performance. Drawing on her Chinese roots and the lived transcultural experience, her work materializes narratives associated with migration, loss and cultural amnesia. Blurring reality and fiction, her projects blend cues of the real time-space to create imaginary dimensions. She has exhibited in the US and abroad in exhibitions such as the Ice Sculpture Show on Governors Island, NY (2022); “This Flesh Is All I Have to Offer” at Grace Exhibition Space (2022); “Bi Cang” at Jia Pingwa Art Museum, Lintong, China (2020); “Be Beyond: 1st Xi’an Biennale 2019,” Xi’an, China. Her work is in the in the permanent collection of Copelouzos Family Art Museum. Her curatorial projects include “Inundated,” 25 East 13th Gallery, New York, NY (2020), and “Left Unsaid, Miss(In) Personae,” CopeNYC, Brooklyn, NY (2021).
Statement
Drawing from my Chinese origins and the lived transcultural experience, I give shape to feelings through drawing, sculpture, moving images, performance, and sound. My work addresses ideas of geographical distance, loss, longing, and intergenerational amnesia. I orbit around fiction and reality, the familiar and the alien. I use existing conditions of language, gender and sociopoliitical environments to reimagine histories and narratives. My sculptures often animate mythical dimensions that open onto alternative presents and futures not yet arrived. In my work, identity is osmosis in constant flux between the personal and the collective.
Materials collaborate with me to co-generate aesthetic, allegorical, and narrative content. Recycling belongings—items destined for loss of value–is a process of healing and resistance. The disintigration and reconfigruation of old belongings mirror natural bio-chemical processes of life, decay and metamorphosis. As rituals of farewell and acts of reclaiming, this process reacts against cursory, utilitarian encounters with material possessions.
CV
Education
2022 M.F.A. Parsons School of Design
2018 B.S. Boston College
Selected Exhibitions
2022 Governors Island Ice Sculpture Show, presented by the Trust for Governors Island
and Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Governors Island, NY
2021 Sex Money Trash, 25 East 13th Gallery, New York, NY
Left Unsaid, Miss(In) Personae, CopeNYC, Brooklyn, NY
2020 Inundated, 25 East 13th Gallery
Bi Cang(Reclusion), Jia Pingwa Art Museu, Lintong, China
2019 Integrated Art Unit, 1st Be Beyond: 2019 Xi’an Biennale, Xi’an, China
2019 Auction at 23rd Annual Diversity and Inclusion Leadership Gala, World Unity Inc.,
Boston, MA
2019 ARTINI, Blend, Boston, MA
2019 TRANSFORMATIVE EXPERIMENT, Chizao Gallery, Xi’an, China
2019 35 by 35, Copelousoz Family Art museum, Athens, Greece.
Curatorial Projects
2021 Left Unsaid, Miss(In) Personae, CopeNYC, Brooklyn, NY
2020 Inundated, 25 East 13th Gallery (http://25eastgallery.com)
Parsons Fine Arts MFA 2022′: A Celebration of Works in Progress, Sheila C.
Johnson Design Center, New York, NY
Publications & Press
2022 Scott Lynch, “Photos: Governors Island throws ice sculpture party on final
weekend of its “Winter Village”sculptures” Gothamist, Feb 27, 2022.
Online
2019 35 BY 35,Copelousoz Family Art museum, Athens, Greece, Catalogue. Print
Collections
Copelouzos Family Art Museum, Athens, Greece
简介
张人谷出生于中国贵阳，现驻扎于西安和纽约。她目前就读帕森斯艺术研究生学院，主修纯艺术。她通过雕塑，绘画，行为艺术，以及影像来诠释文化多元的个人经历和自己的中国文化根基。她所探讨的话题围绕着迁徙, 失去，欲望，和文化遗忘现象等主题。她曾在中国及和海外各个艺术机构参展。参展机构包括：纽约Grace Exhibition Space “This Flesh Is All I Have to Offer”（2022）；西安临潼贾平凹文化艺术馆，“闭藏”（2020）；以及“西安二零一九年第一界双年展”（2019）。她的策展履历包括纽约 “Inundated,” 25 East 13th Gallery (2020), 和“Left Unsaid, Miss(In) Personae” (2021), 纽约布鲁克林CopeNYC。她曾编辑过的艺术出版物包括Project Anywhere 电子出版杂志Anywhere IV 出版杂志 Anywhere IV以及Routledge (英国劳特里奇出版商)2022年出版的当代艺术理论选集 Where Is Art: Space, Time, and Location in Contemporary Art。
Rengu Zhang 