"Altered Carbon 2020: Pang Maokun" will open on January 10, 2020 at Long Museum West Bund in Shanghai, Karlheinz Lüdeking, a famous German scholar of art analysis and philosophy, will be the academic director. The "Altered Carbon 2020" series is a new stage in the expansion and extension of space and media of the "Folded" series. It is an intuitive thinking based on the innovation and crisis of science and technology in human society, which could be unfolded in the track of art history, and also signify the future, attempting to create a futuristic illusion prophetically that AI has become altered carbon of human intelligence as well as innovating and refreshing the existing reality and human trajectory. The artist sublimates the definition of "altered carbon" to explore the context of art history of contemporary art, which meanwhile transforming the relationship corresponding to the current cultural and social reality. Consequently by capturing these internal details through the artist’s highly personal perspective, it will create a new internal art history.
Just as our academic director prof. Lüdeking said: "In this exhibition the perception of the works assimilates itself more to modalities we know from real life. We do not only look at the paintings frontally but also from oblique angles, sometimes they occlude each other, we might even get the impression that we only see them from the corner of our eyes racing along on board of a high-speed train, then it seems as though all the images were projected on the walls from a lighthouse, or we think that those pentagonal and trapezoid shapes might be fragments of a whole that does no longer exit because an explosion has torn it apart throwing the fragments all around onto the walls."
About the Artist
Pang Maokun was born in Chongqing in 1963. He studied in Affiliated Senior High Schoo of Sichuan Fine Arts Institute from 1978 to1981，studied in Oil Painting Department of Sichuan Fine Arts Institute from 1981 to1988; Pang received his master's degree in 1988. Currently, Pang is the Deputy chairman of China Artists Association, President of Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, Chairman of the Chongqing Artists Association, Deputy director of the China Artists Association Oil Painting Council.
For years Pang has been exploring the possibility of classical oil painting language under current circumstances, combining his personal art creation with the social reality. His classical paintings appear distant and different from the daily life as he sets his gaze towards reality. It indicates the maturity of his personal style, which also reveals the value and meaning of oil paintings in contemporary art. His works are exhibited and collected in and out of China. His representative works include Apples are Ripe, The Rainbow is Silently Above, A Golden Summer, Blur Series, Virtual Time Series, Coincidence Series, Shining Brightly Series , Viewing the Floating World Series ,Foldaway Portaits Series and etc.
About the Academic Director
Professor Dr. Karlheinz Lüdeking, Founder and chairman of the German Aesthetic Association. Chairman of the Karl Hofer Society of the Berlin University of the Arts. Chairman of the Academic Committee, Chairman of the Alumni Council. Former dean of the Academy of Fine Arts, Berlin University of the Arts Former. Dean and President of the Nuremberg Art College. Lectureships, including at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, at the Düsseldorf Art Academy and at the Berlin-Weißensee Academy of Art.
Doctorate under Professor Ernst Tugendhat (as a student of one of the greatest philosophers of the 20th century) in 1985 in philosophy and art theory. Professor Ernst Tugendhat himself habilitated on Husserl and Heidegger's art theory, influenced by Wittgenstein's philosophy of self-confidence. Lüdeking's book "Analytical Philosophy of Art" from 1998 is the benchmark for art critics, it has been translated into French, Danish and also into Chinese. His book “Borders of the Visible” became the most read German book in 2006 Publication 2009 - Clement Greenberg - The Essens of Modernity Senior Visiting scholar, Princeton University, USA. Author and expert, among others for Frankfurt Allgemeine Zeitung. Time, DieZeit.
