FEATURE REVIEWS

Crossing Art Gallery is thrilled to present Jingdong Shen’s solo exhibition, "Begin Again," which commenced on September 21, 2023, with a vibrant reception. This unforgettable evening and exhibition showcased his distinctive style through an array of paintings and sculptures, complemented by an enthralling live art performance.

Jingdong Shen, a visionary artist hailing from China, has consistently pushed the boundaries of traditional art forms. His artistic journey has been marked by a remarkable exploration of cultural icons and the human experience. Through his work, he skillfully reimagines figures, including soldiers and symbols of Chinese life, infusing them with new forms and expressive colors. The exhibition will be running until October 31, 2023, at Crossing Art Gallery in Chelsea, New York.

The grand opening and reception of the exhibit on September 21 was a cultural spectacle to behold. In the heart of Chelsea's thriving art scene, our gallery buzzed with anticipation as art enthusiasts, collectors, and aficionados from both China and the United States came together to celebrate Jingdong Shen's transformative artistry. The evening reached its zenith with a breathtaking live performance by the artist himself, a moment that left an indelible mark on all who witnessed it. In a bold artistic performance, Jingdong Shen painted vivid red, white, and yellow strokes across his own face before turning his attention to a blank canvas. Initially, the crowd was struck by the audacity of his act, but as the performance unfolded, a reverent hush fell over the room. The audience was captivated by the intensity of the moment, united by a shared sense of awe.

This performance was a reflection of the overarching theme of "Begin Again" – a demonstration of the artist's unwavering commitment to transformation and the power of art to encapture culture. It served as a unifying moment, where individuals from diverse backgrounds came together to witness an art form brought to light by Jingdong Shen’s imagination.

LANCE CHANG: RÊVES DE BALLET

By Peter Frank

More than most art forms, the art of the ballet, steeped in a highly formalized tradition of almost ritualistic storytelling, resists personalized interpretation and eccentric reformulation. Renegade radicals like Sergei Diaghilev and Isadora Duncan may have advanced boundary-shattering approaches, but rather than enter the balletic mainstream these inventions engendered a whole new, parallel category, modern dance. To this day, the ballet per se comprises a procession of gestures and costumes unchanged from Petipa’s day. 

Such an orthodox mode of performance, when regarded from the vantage of another art, invites a peculiarly intense reinterpretation -- certainly of the kind Lance Chang proffers in his painterly, metamorphic photographs. In Chang’s fluid, even molten images, the ballerina -- as often as not solo, as if dreaming the experience – fuses with her environment. That environment seems itself alive, organic, breathing and heaving with the efforts of the dancer at once to escape and to fuse with it.  

In Chang’s charged apparitions, the dancer, as W. B. Yeats would have it, has become one with the dance. So has the landscape. So has your perception. These are no mere documents of performance, nor even choreographic interpretations; they are fever dreams that unlock the transformative power of ballet, exposing the carnal, epicurean, erotic force that drives all dance and which ballet seeks to harness – but not tame. The camera art of Lance Chang unleashes  emotion behind the motion, sensation that has waited in the wings for liberation.

Los Angeles, March 2023