THE WORLD'S MOST CONTROVERSIAL STREET AND STENCIL ARTIST

Vernissage: 6:30pm - 8:30pm, 29 April 2008
Exhibition: 30 April - 13 May 2008
Venue: Main Gallery 21-31 Old Bailey Street, Central, Hong Kong

Schoeni Art Gallery is immensely thrilled to present our gallery's first urban art exhibition Banksy - The World's Most Controversial Street and Stencil Artist in association with Fabrik Contemporary Art and the Helium Foundation, UK. Banksy is undoubtedly the world's most famous street and stencil artist of our time and a pre-eminent figure whose' works encompass the culture of the generation we live in.

Often being compared with Andy Warhol and regarded as 'the new Damien Hirst', Banksy is evidently a happening representative of today's cutting-edge art scene. He epitomizes an art that is honest, real and conveniently accessible. Banksy's works can be seen globally from the streets of London to the Segregation Wall in Palestine and he has shaken the art world with his revolutionary guerrilla art of using stenciled spray paint to convey mocking messages of peace, justice and freedom.

At the Red charity auction in February 2008, organized by Bono, Damien Hirst and Sotheby's to help fight Aids in Africa, Banksy's "Keep it Spotless" was sold for 1,870,000USD setting an auction record for the artist. The remarkable piece consists of a joint collaboration between Banksy and Damien Hirst, in which the stencil artist defaced one of Hirst's famous spot paintings.

The Banksy exhibition will be a continuation of the Love Art show, which will take place at the Hong Kong Arts Centre from 23-28 April, highlighting Banksy's rare and previously unseen in Hong Kong originals. The showing at Schoeni Art Gallery will then be enhanced by additional unique examples of his work, such as his famous policemen with iconic smiley faces of the acid house music, rats with drills, monkeys carrying written messages and weapons of mass destruction. In this ground breaking event, Schoeni Art Gallery wishes to nurture a sensational and effervescent opportunity to experience an unorthodox art form that is created under time and space.

"You can imagine that much of the past four years that I have been running the gallery years were spent trying to pace the changes in my life with the rhythm of my father's gallery. Now that I am on the same beat, I want to begin making my own innovations, such as bringing the urban art scene overseas to Asia. As a student in London I came across Banksy's works on the streets - it has always been my dream to show his works in Hong Kong and to share his wit and his art of communicating controversial and confrontational subjects about the world we live in today through simplistic means."

- Nicole Schoeni

All artworks exhibited at the Banksy exhibition are secondary market originals and prints.

 

 

For interview arrangements or further information please contact Daniela Cavero.
Exhibition venue:	Main Gallery, 21 - 31 Old Bailey Street, Central, Hong Kong
Opening Date:	6:30 pm - 8:30 pm, 29 April 2008
Exhibition runs:	30 April - 13 May 2008
Private viewing: (by appointment only)	14 May - 21 May 2008
Contact Details:	Tel: +852 2869-8802     Fax: +852 2522-1528 prmarketing@schoeni.com.hk    www.schoeni.com.hk

The Chen Family
Paintings by Yu Chen, Chen Yu and Chen Li

Vernissage: 13 April 2008 3:00 pm
Exhibition: 13 - 29 April 2008
Venue: Beijing Today Art Museum Gallery
        Pingod, Building 4, Baiziwan Rd, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100022, China

Schoeni Art Gallery is delighted to announce our latest exhibition The Chen Family in association with Today Art Museum's gallery in Beijing on 13 April 2008 that will showcase the greatly anticipated work by the Chen family for the second time. By now, many will recognise the familiar faces of Yu Chen's Red Babies Series and Chen Yu's linear rows of multiple selves poised in satirical uniformity. This is, however, the youngest sibling Chen Li's second debut as an artist in his own right, and Schoeni Art Gallery, along with his elder two siblings are united in their support of not only his potential, but also his clearly defined talent.

Yu Chen's celebrated Red Babies communicate with unpredictable visuals in the spirit of Post-modernism. With concise aptitude, her baby motif is overtly frank, in keeping with the unabashed nature of infancy. Whilst dramatising the innocence of her subject matter, Yu Chen strives for an ironical overtone to emerge through her use of military uniform and her babies physical likenesses to Chairman Mao; sometimes they are playfully rendered with sweeties and ice-creams in their chubby hands; other times they are satirically portrayed as an irked enfant terrible. As a female artist dealing with social issues that are culturally and politically charged, Yu Chen's role as a mouthpiece for the Chinese creative woman infuses her work with a topical, and biological relevance. Yu Chen's palette of bright, brash reds depicts a raw emotional quality. Some of Yu Chen's newest works mark a departure from her previous style and places a greater emphasis on gender by more visibly articulating the sex of her Red Babies.

Chen Yu's cynical realism has met with acclaim since the inception of his particular style characterised by linear rows of duplicated human heads. Achieving balance through repetition used to a witty effect, Chen Yu targets specific and familiar social intrinsic values using farce and satire through vista tightened and relaxed by spatial binary opposition. Held within his repetitive framework is the amassed central identity of fashion and trend, forming a pseudo-Jungian archetype against a politically charged landscape. Emerging out of an "era where independent individuals and the liberalisation of thought are advocated", Chen Yu questions the standards of identity and his monotonous replication of the "self" lends an ironical twist to the one faltering exception in each piece; a sly wink, or a vague variation in facial expression and tone.

Since his graduation from the esteemed Beijing Central Academy of Fine Art, Chen Li's work has met with accolades, and he has received notable rewards for his artistic vision and skill. Distinguishing himself as an individual artist with a specific and unique visual expression that belies his filial relationship to the aforementioned artists, his elder siblings, Chen Li's works are startlingly self-conscious, aware and contemplative. Chen Li's figurative representations are notably more abstract and aloof, deploying surrealist metaphor and association to confront his sense of the world around him. At times garbing his figures in traditional ethnic costume, Chen Li's work deifies his subject matter, seamlessly blending Buddhist and Christian symbology with integrity and verve. Strengthened by his explicit technical finesse on the canvas, he borrows from Renaissance technique and composition. Chen Li's iconic works visually extrapolate the implications of Eastern and Western aesthetic representation by poising his figures against highly suggestive backdrops. Chen Li paints with a poetic lyricism that resumes the social commentary of China's recent history.

Written by Alexandra Hamlyn

Click on image for an enlarged view.

Yu Chen Red Babies 2007 Series No. 5 Mixed Media on Canvas 150 x 120 cm, 2007

Chen Yu Untitled 2007 Series No. 5 Oil on Canvas 140 x 110 cm, 2007

Chen Li Evening Oil on Canvas 90 x 100 cm, 2007

For interview arrangements or further information please contact Selina Liu.

Exhibition venue:	Beijing Today Art Museum Gallery Pingod, Building 4, Baiziwan Rd, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100022, China
Opening Date:	3 pm, 13 April 2008
Exhibition runs:	13 - 29 April 2008
Contact Details:	Selina Liu, Tel: +852 2869-8802     Fax: +852 2522-1528 gallery@schoeni.com.hk    www.schoeni.com.hk

Schoeni Art Gallery is delighted to announce our latest exhibition The Chen Family in association with Today Art Museum's gallery in Beijing on 13 April 2008 that will showcase the greatly anticipated work by the Chen family for the second time. By now, many will recognise the familiar faces of Yu Chen's Red Babies Series and Chen Yu's linear rows of multiple selves poised in satirical uniformity. This is, however, the youngest sibling Chen Li's second debut as an artist in his own right, and Schoeni Art Gallery, along with his elder two siblings are united in their support of not only his potential, but also his clearly defined talent.

bridgeArtFair New York 2008 will be at The Waterfront 222 12th Avenue, New York.

Art London 2007 - the UK's leading art fair for contemporary and modern art - returns in 2007 for its 9th year.

The fair showcases over 80 leading UK and international galleries - encompassing painting, sculpture, photography, works on paper, ceramics and glass - with prices ranging from £500 to £250,000.

The venue is a 65,000 square ft. marquee set in the grounds of The Royal Hospital, Chelsea, London SW3. Due to the ever increasing number of exhibitors showing historically significant works, the organisers are once again dedicating a section of the fair to twentieth century and modern art.