Chambers Fine Art is pleased to announce the opening on September 12, 2013 of Zhao Zhao: Constellations. Born and educated in Shihezi, Xinjiang in 1982, Zhao Zhao moved into the orbit of Ai Weiwei when he moved to Beijing, all the while absorbing a critical attitude that characterizes all aspects of his work, paintings, sculpture, miscellaneous objects and performances.
For his second exhibition at Chambers Fine Art, Constellations departs from the culturally specific references to modern China that characterized According to Zhao Zhao: New Works (Chambers Fine Art, Beijing, 2011) to a more abstract approach that nonetheless is pointedly contrarian in spirit.
Constellations, as series of glass panels perforated with irregular patterns of holes and cracks, originated last year when Zhao Zhao decided to conduct an experiment involving gunshots and glass, a difficult undertaking in China where with very few exceptions the ownership of firearms is illegal. Intrigued by the idea of utilizing the velocity of bullets to create works of art in a carefully controlled manner, Zhao Zhao subsequently likened the glittering glass panels to constellations, any reference to astronomy having been far from his mind at the beginning of the project.
Contrasting with the glass Constellations are the Sky paintings, a seeming anomaly in his highly diverse practice. The context for these lush sky studies that verge on abstraction is Beijing where "blue-sky days" are exceedingly rare, more common being the grayish yellow of heavily polluted air. Zhao Zhao' s sky paintings are the work of somebody who seldom if ever sees a truly blue sky in his day to day existence in Beijing.
Appearances to the contrary, Zhao Zhao has not joined the long tradition of western artists from Constable to Monet who have paid tribute to the sky and cloud formations. Neither belated nature painter nor frustrated astronomer, Zhao Zhao creates subtexts that make his paintings of roiling skies and his glass Constellations potent beyond their physical presence.
赵赵1982年出生于新疆石河子市，移居北京后进入了艾未未的工作室，同时将从其前辈身上吸取到的批判精神运用到他的油画、雕塑、装置和表演艺术中。他在前波画廊的第二个展览《星空》不同于《赵赵说：近作》（前波画廊，北京，2011）中对现代中国文化的具体引用，而是用了一种更为抽象的手法表现出其不变的的叛逆性。
赵赵去年开始尝试用枪击和玻璃来进行创作，于是《星空》这一由布满不规则的弹孔和裂缝的玻璃组成的系列诞生了。赵赵对利用子弹的速度来进行精准的艺术创作产生了兴趣。虽然后来他将这些闪闪发光的玻璃板比作星空，但在创作初期，他脑海中完全没有想到过天文学。
《天空》这一系列油画作品与《星空》形成鲜明对比，在其多元化的创作中也似乎十分罕见。这些近乎抽象的蔚蓝天空的创作地点是北京，一座近来鲜有蓝天的城市，更多时候则是高度污染的灰黄色天空。赵赵的《天空》系列出自一个生活在北京、难得能够看到真正的蓝天的艺术家之手。