SNAPSHOT
Group Exhibition

March 13 – May 2, 2021
Extended to May 23, 2021
Galerie Urs Meile Beijing

Press Release – ENGLISH

Galerie Urs Meile is proud to present the exhibition SNAPSHOT, the gallery’s first group show since the inauguration of its Beijing space 15 years ago. The exhibition aims to describe the gallery program and its community of artists at this particular moment in time, presenting never-before-seen works from some of the most prolific artists and emerging new voices in China and Europe, including:

Marion Baruch, Mirko Baselgia, Cao Yu, Cheng Ran, Hu Qingyan, Ju Ting, Tobias Kaspar, Li Gang, Meng Huang, Qiu Shihua, Shao Fan (Yu Han), Anatoly Schuravlev, Rebekka Steiger, Julia Steiner, Not Vital, Wang Xingwei, Xie Nanxing, Yang Mushi and Zhang Xuerui.

A snapshot is a document that gives an understanding of a state of things at a specific moment in time. It can also refer to a photograph that is taken to chronicle an impression of something transitory. It can be both an intentional act to record something that is believed to manifest a specific zeitgeist, and an intuitive, entirely subjective and serendipitous expression with no strings attached. When one snapshot is associated with another, and they are embedded into a contextual framework, what begins as a breezy word is uplifted into a voice that has the power to create meaning.

The symbiotic relationship between artists and galleries can be described by similar dynamics, while the exhibition functions as a snapshot of their current condition. Before an artwork is released to the public, its sole purpose is tied to the artist’s subjective creative explorations. It is through the continuous exposure to the audience and the echoes of the broader art community that the artwork becomes embedded in the public memory and eventually reveals its significance.

Galerie Urs Meile has strived to strengthen the artist communities that evolved around it in China and Europe, and has established itself as one of the core bridge builders between the continents for nearly 30 years. The challenges faced today are simultaneously global and local on an unprecedented level. The gallery strongly believes that the sense of local community and the international exchange among those communities is now critical and meaningful as never before.