Song Dong. Regenerate

Baró Gallery is pleased to announce Regenerate, the first solo exhibition in Brazil by acclaimed Chinese artist Song Dong, which will be inaugurated on August 30, 2014 at 11am. Curated by Sarina Tang, the title refers to installations that the artist develops from discarded materials. In Chinese (重生), the word means double life and rebirth.

His installations, consisted of furniture, doors and demolition windows, symbolically carry the artist biography whose past is marked by economic hardship and psychological tensions he experienced with his family during the Cultural Revolution of Mao Zedong between 1966 and 1976. Song Dong work has a significant contemporary discourse in relation to urban renewal and sustainability when he "regenerates" discarded materials into a new aesthetic.

In his first exhibition in the city, the artist seeks to draw a parallel between Brazil and China. It will be presented photographs of 1990s, videos made over two decades, a large new installation - composed of demolition materials purchased in different states of Brazil that dialogue with those commonly found in Beijing - and also drawings created in São Paulo. In the artistic context, the two countries bear a resemblance: as others pointed out as "in developing", both only had their artistic recognition by Europe and the United States axis over the past two decades.

Born in Beijing, China, in 1966 where he lives and works, Song Dong graduated as a painter but he excelled within the avant-garde performance art community and eventually became an important figure of contemporary art in the progression of Chinese conceptual art. Song graduated from the fine arts department of Capital Normal University in Beijing in 1989. He has participated in major art shows in the world such as the 5th Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art in 2013, Documenta 13 in 2012 and 54th Venice Biennale in 2011. His work ranges from performance and video to photography and sculpture. Song explores notions of impermanence and transience of human activity.