Salt Road | Li Gang exhibition in Lucerne, Switzerland

Galerie Urs Meile in Lucerne, Switzerland presents Salt Road, the second solo exhibition by Li Gang. Since it was founded in 1992 the Galerie Urs Meile has been internationally engaged in the presentation and dissemination of contemporary art in painting, sculpture, photography, installation and performance. The gallery operates out of two locations: Lucerne (Switzerland) and Beijing (China). Salt Road exhibition runs: 21 August - 1 November 2014 Galerie Urs Meile is pleased to announce the opening of Salt Road, the second solo exhibition by Li Gang at its Lucerne gallery. Li Gang studied painting, but went on to experiment with a wide range of media and materials. He wants his art to stay fresh and committing to only one medium would limit him too much. With Li Gang you never know which form his next group of works will take on. His art has no recognizable style, the common ground lies deeper: in Li Gang’s interest in transformation. This concern encompasses both: his own growth as an artist and the transformation of ordinary objects into art works. His aim is to create art, which is more than just a reproduction or copy of reality, and he challenges himself with all kinds of unusual materials: dead trees, waste from exhaust emissions, cement, stones and hemp string. Li Gang was born 1986 in Dali in Yunnan Province in China and studied oil painting at Yunnan Dali Academy in Dali, China and art at the Department of Experimental Art of Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing, China. More works from the series’ exhibited in Lucerne will be shown at Palais de Tokyo in Paris from October 20, 2014 as part of the group exhibition Inside China. While the operating centre is based in Switzerland, the Beijing branch – set in the middle of the artist and gallery quarter Caochangdi – has established itself as an international meeting place for collectors, curators and aficionados of the arts. The Urs Meile Caochangdi complex in Beijing, designed by Ai Weiwei, contains four spacious exhibition rooms within six buildings, and houses the artist-in-residence programme initiated by the gallery. The artistic programme contains established as well as up-and-coming young artists from China, Europe and the U.S.A. As one of the first galleries worldwide to do so, since its first contact in the middle of the 1990s, the Galerie Urs Meile has also been intensively involved in the Chinese contemporary art scene, whose protagonists now participate in the discourse on contemporary visual art at the highest international level. In recent years, the gallery has enduringly fostered the careers of some of the most influential Chinese artists working today. Image: Li Gang, Beads No. 3, 2013 | wooden spheres, shaped from the connecting points of a dead tree of Yunnan Province | 504 pcs., ø 0.8 - ø 78 cm