It is a great pleasure to be able to present Zhu Jia’s first exhibition at ShanghART Gallery.

The show will feature video works showing the artist’s continuous experimentation and development within this medium, including his newest three-channel video-installation ‘We are Perfect’ (2008). In this, close-ups of expression-less, but immaculate, faces are shown continuously, starring back at the audience from three large screens. The projections directly create an immediate and unsettling impact, and one might ask ‘Who is starring at who?’ Being confronted by these enlarged facial features, questions regarding the title itself may also arise: Who is perfect? What is perfection? Is it a question of physicality, spirit, or imagination? Perhaps the artist is merely yearning over the ‘perfect’ heroism of the past. The ambiguous approach to perfectionism is a theme often found in Zhu Jia’s previous work.

The latest work continues Zhu Jia’s usual style, which contain a particular interest and focus on the inter-action between the audience and the image, i.e. between the viewer and the viewed. Zhu Jia’s previous works include ‘Forever’ (1994), ‘Did they have sex?’ (1995), ‘Repeat on purpose’ (1996), ‘Related to environment’ (1997), ‘Never take off’ (2002), and ‘New land’ (2005). As one of the most interesting of the Chinese video artists, Zhu Jia’s videos and photography focus on depicting and distorting images of humans, everyday realities and environments

Zhu Jia was born in 1963 in Beijing, and graduated from China Central Academy of Fine Arts - Oil Painting Department in 1988. He lives and works in Beijing now. He has exhibited at many major art institutions, such as National Art Museum of China (Beijing), Duolun Museum of Modern Art (Shanghai), National Museum of Contemporary Art (Seoul, Korea), Museo Colecciones ICO (Madrid, Spain), Netherlands fotomuseum (The Netherlands), La Parvis centre d’art contemporain (Pau, France), 50^th International Art Exhibition Venice Biennale (Venice, Italy), The museum of modern art (MOMA, New York, U.S.A), The Photographers’ Gallery and Asia House (London, U.K.).

For further exhibitions news and artists information, please visit www.shanghartgallery.com

For high resolution images, please contact Miss Helen Zhu at helen@shanghartgallery.com