————————Victoria Lu 's Dialogue with Oriental Rococo * VIKI LULU HOUSE Sets Sail in Shenzhen C Future City

 

Born in 1951, Victoria Lu studied abroad at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels, Belgium, in 1971 and immigrated to the United States two years later, where she received her degrees of Bachelor of Fine Arts and Master of Arts from California State University, majoring in painting. In the mid-1970s, she began writing art reviews for Chinese art magazines and newspapers and launched her curatorial career in 1978 as the curator of the Alternative Space in Southern California, focusing on conceptual installation art. In the 1980s, she translated the word "curator" from English to Chinese策展人. She is the earliest female art critic and curator in Chinese contemporary art circles written in Chinese. In 2003, he returned to his parents' hometown of Shanghai and became the Art Director of Shanghai Bund 18 Creative Center and later served as the Creative Director at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Shanghai. In 2006, Victoria founded the Envisage Biennial at MoCA and Animamix Biennial of Anime Aesthetics in 2007, proposing a twenty-first-century aesthetic discourse on animation and comics driving a new trend. In 2010, Victoria Lu was appointed as the creative director of Today Art Museum in Beijing and curated the collateral event "Future Pass-from Asia to the World" of the 54th International Art Exhibition – la Biennale di Venezia. With over 150 artists invited, it was the opening exhibition of the restored fourteenth-century monastery of Fondazione Claudio Buziol in Venice, Italy, later also touring the Wereldmuseum Rotterdam in the Netherlands, Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts at Taichung City, and Today Art Museum at Beijing. In 2016, she organized the Super M MAA and participated 2017 Venice Biennale the collateral event MODUS to debut their square-dancing performance of Viva La Belle Vie. In the same two years, she produced her husband, art historian and connoisseur of Chinese painting and calligraphy, Mr. Fu Shen's documentary "Traces of the Brush," selected for various international film festivals and won six international film festival awards. From 2017 to 2019, Victoria co-directed her first documentary film with the young director Zhao Bozuo named "RE: PROMISES." The film was screened at the 33rd Golden Rooster Film Festival of Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan sector in 2020, describing how a family of four elderly people struggled with the fate of aging while preserving and promoting the Chinese tradition of filial piety. It was a depiction of Victoria's life of happiness and sorrow when bravely facing dementia and disability of the old.

 

For almost ten years between 2012 and 2021, Victoria Lu disappeared from the art world because she needed to take care of her family of four elderly folks, plus herself, and thus became the director of her old people's home. In 2021, Victoria returned to the contemporary art world as a "curategist," an innovative identity she created. This time, she changed her identity, no longer being a "curator", but a curator's upgraded version of“curategist”. In the early 1980s, Lu translated the English word“curator”into Chinese策展人, bringing the profession of curation to the Chinese context. Now she combined“curator”and“strategist”to create a new word“curategist”to expand the original function of curating. The term "curategist" implies the ability to integrate resources across boundaries, the operation or docking of transcribing, calculating, storing, and distributing information on the blockchain, including the function of a strategist in the field of finance and investment, links and synthesizes to create a comprehensive career involving cross-branding art, education, digital technology, online marketing and finance, and multiple titles. “Curategist”, the third version of “curator”, aptly corresponding to the naming of “Web 3.0” in the limelight, is ready to welcome the new era of AI-enabled art. In 2021, as Victoria’s husband art historian Professor Fu Shen decided to retire in their hometown Shanghai, they went to Huang Gongwang's Hermitage in Fuyang, Zhejiang Province to respond to the call of Huang Gongwang Village to help the birth of the cross-strait project, Yuanyuan Garden. From then on, Victoria started to come back to the art world in China. In April 2022, Victoria with her friends launched and jointly organized with the Cafoscari University of Venice and Iuav University of Venice the 1st Annual METAVERSE Art @VENICE with a new media art research exhibition. From 2022 to 2023, she participated in the Hunan TV/Mango TV's reality show, The Cosmos of Young Artists, as the organizer and curator. Victoria is also the doctoral supervisor at the Graduate Institute of Creative Industries, Shih Chien University, Taipei. Start from May 8th, the creation of VIKI LULU HOUSE in the space capsule of Shenzhen C FUTURE CITY MMC is the latest manifestation of her performance art at the age of 72 that "keeps going on while life lasts. "

 

 

 

VIKI LULU HOUSE is an IP brand led by the first Chinese female curator Victoria Lu, and a team aiming to develop a diversified art platform. The word“HOUSE”is based on the concept of“family”, but rather than referring to the traditional definition of kinship, it means a group of like-minded partners working together. Through combining the strength and sources of these family members, we will bring diverse art and fashion into daily living and create an innovative aesthetic value as well as the living attitude of “affordable nobility.” We will connect art with various industries, highlighting the spiritual essence and style of the artwork and also paying attention to the development of creativity and innovation, the balance of art and market, and the guarantee of quality and value, to create the maximum value of artworks as commodities. Authorized by the team of VIKI LULU HOUSE, our brand license, strategic alliance, and cross-marketing will extend the spirit and connotations of art to new media interactions and branded merchandise beyond the artworks, which will kick-off trends and commercial opportunities built on a horizontal and vertical matrix. The latest exhibition at the MINDstyle MISSION CONTROL of C Future City added the concept of 18th-century Rococo art salons. With Victoria Lu as the hostess, the artists she appreciated, collaborated, and co-branded with are engaged to create a large installation artwork with life aesthetics, proposing her concept of “Life is art - Art is life.” In order to provide "affordable nobility" art and products to the art-loving public, working with the platform of MMC, we will take promoting the brand of VIKI LULU HOUSE to the global market as our mission.

“Art intervened Lifestyle”is not Victoria’s new concept, but her long-standing belief. She believes that art stands for a pleasant life experience for everyone, instead of a competition of skillful craftsmen or a service for the rich and noble to show off. Breaking the modernist myth of "Art for Art’s Sake” and the self-indulgence of artists who consider themselves superior, we want to share the concept of "Art for People’s Sake”, which means the happiness and delightfulness that one can encounter in everyday life. Thus, VIKI LULU HOUSE is a platform for sharing, a place for all creators with the same ambition to connect, and a decentralized center of creativity, production, and operation. It is an offline interactive space with the concept of DAO, considering the infinite connection in Cloud as the career ideal, rather than a fixed and single space in the mundane realm. It is a changeable, flowable, experienceable space derived from the combination of virtual and reality. Different from the residual fragments constructed by Western aesthetic thoughts, that is, the commonly perceived "art for art's sake." Victoria Lu starts the new chapter based on the idea of "art is from but beyond life." Victoria agrees with that "art comes from life," but she gives a more multifaceted interpretation to this concept: because life is shaped and owned by every individual, it is diverse and can be extended infinitely, but art is only a tiny part derived from it. For some people, the art they love is the only thing irreplaceable, but such honor is based on personal perception and emotional needs, not on universal value standards. Moreover, AI is now influencing the mode, method, and development of the occurrence and output of art. The time has come to an era when everyone can become an artist, so why should we continue to emphasize that "art is from but beyond life?" Thus, Victoria Lu proposed the slogan "Life is art - Art is life" to emphasize the new reality that art has entered into thousands of households. This time, she presented VIKI LULU HOUSE in the form of an art salon in Shenzhen C Future City because a salon means a large living room at home, and its relation with art started in the 18th-century Rococo period. The so-called salon is often presided over by an exquisite hostess, to form a fashionable exchange environment and a communication platform for shaping the concept of contemporary art, a way to gather popularity, and a way to call on partners with the same belief. Therefore, the salon Lu launched in C Future City carries experimental quality, hoping to gather new-era artists and friends who appreciate them in the Greater Bay Area.

Shenzhen C Future City is ahead of its time among all shopping malls around the world, because its constructure concept and content carries a unique sense of mission and pursuit of innovation. In a core location of Futian District where combines the bustle CBD and leisure urban-village, C Future City decided to take no demolition as its working principle. How to propose its over-the-top concept and futuristic feel while maintaining the original residents’ lifestyle and business patterns? It is a bold proposition for urban and rural construction and renovation, but also a challenge with dilemma. However, based on the foresight of Centralcon Group and Shenzhen Futian government, the goal of C Future City is to create a top-notch trendy art center, instead of a place to embellish trendy artworks in the commercial shopping center, but to form the entire space into a mega installation artwork with a sense of trendy art. From inside to outside, C Future City is trendy art! This is why Victoria Lu attaches great importance to hosting her VIKI LULU HOUSE here and is determined to work with the C Future City and the nearby residents to create a trendy art highland in the world, a Futian resort where art is art for everyone to help Futian District to build a "Shangxiasha Special Cultural Block" with Shenzhen characteristics.

VIKI LULU HOUSE's exhibition at MMC this time is a group exhibition of Victoria Lu, Gao Xiaowu, Zhao Xiaoli, and Zhu Dan. It also debuts LULU LEILEI, LULU KANGKANG, LULU BINBIN, LULU ADUO, LULU BOBO, LULU ZHAIZAI, LULU MEIMEI, LULU RIVER, and other VIKI LULU HOUSE's co-branded artworks. The exhibition fully presents Lu’s new identity as curategist: she is an art creator, a brand manager, and also a promoter of domestic trendy art. With a life of insubordination, she stays with art to the very end. Finally, she lives herself as art: EVERYTHING I DO IS ART, IS ART! This is Victoria Lu's sincere manifesto to the world.

Introduction to group exhibition artists:

Born in 1976 in Sanming, Fujian Province, Gao Xiaowu is a legendary figure in the Chinese contemporary art world who has always held the view that "the present matters" and insisted on practicing simple "ordinary art." His works are mostly light-hearted, humorous, gentle, and non-hostile, revealing metaphorical and non-extreme rational thinking, expressing concern, criticism, and reflection on society. His early works include "The Standard Age," "Urban Dreams," "Our Generation," "Soft Violence," "In and Out," etc. His recent works, such as "Regeneration," focus on everyday phenomena, kindly inviting the public, "awakening the original nature with regeneration," "exploring the relationship between all creatures in a shared context," and trying to maximize the effectiveness of art in society through keeping finesse to convenient others. His "The Standard Age" was created in 2004 as a reflection on the era of computer science. All "standards" are, in a sense, the self-binding of human beings, especially at this moment, when "digitization" and "programming" have become ubiquitous in the world, even with claims that AI threatens the future of mankind. "The Standard Age" seems to be a prophet existence, which has rapidly entered the vision of society since its release in 2004. It has been so classic in the past 20 years that it has been widely copied and emulated. It almost becomes the most popular art style for global copycat piracy and the most pirated sculpture in the world. One can see pirated "The Standard Age" all around the world. This time, Gao Xiaowu made a rare appearance of the original work of "The Standard Age" at VIKI LULU HOUSE, representing, on the one hand, the deep friendship between him and Victoria Lu over the past twenty years, and on the other hand, the announcement that he is about to bid farewell to the first generation of human's "The Standard Age" and launch his robot version of "The Standard Age." Gao Xiaowu's works have been collected by many domestic and international art institutions, public spaces, and private collections, and now a new chapter is about to unfold.

Zhao Xiaoli's meteoric rise in the art world is a contemporary legend in itself. The attention she has reaped on various social platforms (including global ones) far exceeds that of many famous artists. After she has solidly accumulated such vast amounts of data along the way, she has, in fact, established herself as a sect leader of a multi-dimensional and multi-channel art category in the data era: Meta-media Art. It cannot be categorized into any established category. It is a proto-art belonging to the development process of meta-universe art. "What one person creates and another person likes is art." This is Zhao's philosophy of creation, which begins with her love for painting and her inner need to express those beliefs. She completed her master's degree in art and design at EINA Barcelona during the pandemic, but her art is not guided or restricted by the genres of Chinese and foreign art history. She simply paints the subjects and chooses the styles she wants. Zhao Xiaoli's childhood memories are colorful, with birdsong and butterflies dancing in a multifaceted interplay of sound, color, and taste. It is a vibrant, three-dimensional, and dynamic scene. The latest exhibition reflects the greatest extent of the highly complex elements of various gigantic details that she experienced, observed, and remembered from her childhood. On October 1, 2019, when the country celebrated National Day, Zhao Xiaoli, with her love of painting, created a Douyin account with her own name and released a short video of her painting. Unexpectedly, the video received one million likes as soon as it was released and became very popular. A beautiful female who had no intention of doing performance art became the hottest performance artist on the social media platform and became the imitated model of many young female artists. In fact, it was just her obsession with expressing her painting art wholeheartedly that so inadvertently ignited on both domestic and global social platforms. With the iteration of technology in the digital age, new media and platforms have allowed her to find an outlet for sharing. As a pioneer of the new multi-dimensional and multi-channel art category "meta-media art" in the digital age, Zhao Xiaoli, embracing the masses, has not left behind, continuing to shine her colorful art through time and space to the fullest.

Zhu Dan, living in Hangzhou, expresses his thoughts on the development of human civilization in the large-scale artwork "ART BIG BANG," in which each famous painting represents a period of history, a human civilization compressed by time and space. Showing the life and beliefs of various periods, they are interlinked but also independent of each other. While with a thousand and one causes and effects, they seem to be a kind of subconscious visual illusion, giving the audience a sense of overlapped time. The famous painting in each image represents one of these elements, but there is no apparent connection between them. Only from the overall perspective, via metallic paint, they form an organic whole. However, metallic car paint is a product of modern industry, as Zhu Dan's choice of material goes against tradition. There is a contrast with the previous material in that there is no brushstroke, no bumpiness on the flat surface, and the canvas's texture is also visible. When light hits on it, it will shine and sparkle. When people walk back and forth in front of the painting, the light will deceive the eyes and give the illusion of three-dimensionality, a wonderful, unique texture, and a reflective effect. It then represents the characteristics of modern industrial civilization, expressing the artistic civilization from ancient times to the present to combine them to create new meaning and aesthetics. For several smaller artworks, Zhu Dan incorporated his loved animation, fashion, and cartoon elements since childhood into his works, making them more imaginative and fantastical, fitting well with his thinking pattern of Zhu himself. These elements often have a strong visual impact and a unique artistic style, making up Zhu Dan's view of things. Zhu Dan believes that the whole process of society is similar to the memory of the brain, fragmented and continuous. The entire process of the Big Bang narrowed down to center on a person, as if the human memory. If the memory is a glass ball, then break it and spill it on the ground, maybe the "memory of the Big Bang" of a place. Recently, Zhu Dan entered the field of AI-enabled art. He believes that AI's big data can make it faster and easier for artists to find precious materials and documents and use AI technologies such as generative adversarial networks, deep learning, and automatic drawing algorithms to generate "art slices" or "inspiration pieces" that are full of unique styles and creativity. The artist, as the "curategist," can select, edit, and recreate these "fragments" and form one's distinctive perspective to make art meaningful.

联系人：林存忠 13301680850 Michael Lim: michael.lim@mega-watts.com