James Jean: ETERNAL SPIRAL
12 November 2023 until 12 February 2023
Modern Art Museum (MAM)
4777 Binjiang Avenue
Pudong New Area
Shanghai
Eternal spiral, the first major museum exhibition in china of artist James Jean, opens tomorrow at Modern Art Museum (MAM) shanghai and will run for three months. The exhibition will feature more than 200 works spanning more than 20 years in James Jean’s career, including painting, sculptures, sketches and prints.
This all encompassing look at the artist’s oeuvre gives audiences a chance to experience the depths of Jean’s seemingly unlimited imagination. Eternal Spiral will allow audiences to closely approach the workshop of this dream weaver whose sources span from anime and comics to Dutch Renaissance painting and silk scroll paintings.
Image courtesy of James Jean and Gallery All
An exhibition of more than 200 works by James Jean will open on 12 November at Modern Art Museum Shanghai, the first major museum exhibition in China by the acclaimed artist.
Eternal Spiral, curated by Robin Peckham, will run for three months until 12 February 2023 and will feature more than 200 works by James Jean spanning a creative period of more than 20 years, with large scale paintings, sculptures, animations, prints, sketches and colour studies, as well as a number of rare sketchbooks from his early years as an artist.
The exhibition will cover three floors of the exhibition hall in Modern Art Museum Shanghai. Several of the works, including five paintings created this year, will be revealed for the first time, with many others never having been exhibited in China before now. This all-encompassing look at the artist’s work will give audiences a chance to experience the depths of Jean’s seemingly unlimited imagination.
James Jean is a multi-disciplinary visual artist whose works explore imagination and reality through narrative-driven, layered compositions. The textures, patterns, influences, and symbols he incorporates are indicative of his international worldview, drawing upon European Renaissance paintings, Japanese woodblock prints, Chinese silk scroll paintings, anime, and comics. As well as many paintings, sculptures and sketches, Eternal Spiral will feature more than 100 prints, including movie posters of Everything Everywhere All At Once and the Oscar-winning film The Shape of Water.
Ten sketchbooks from the early years of James Jean’s painting career are included in the exhibition, as well as hundreds of sketches and colour studies of his creative works, which will allow audiences to delve into the artist’s creative process and witness the steps of each masterpiece’s completion, as well as the art forms to which painting can extend. Of particular interest will be five large scale animations which will allow viewers to interact with the figures and imagery in the paintings up close, to dive into the artist’s mind and to dissect the dreamlike world as he blends Eastern and Western cultures, mythological and philosophical imagery.
Shai Baitel, Artistic Director at the Modern Art Museum (MAM) Shanghai adds: “Though his deft command of narrative and a deep interest in human imagination, James Jean has created an inventive visual language that touches on fine art, cinema, and fashion — among many others — while seeking to bridge the realms of dreams and reality. His trans disciplinary body of work is prolific and boundary blurring, putting historical tradition in conversation with contemporary experience. Resonating with the ethos of MAM Shanghai, Jean’s work is a cultural bridge between various disciplines, mediums, and nationalities.”
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James Jean: ETERNAL SPIRAL opens from the 12th of November 2023 until 12th of February, 2023 at Modern Art Museum (MAM)
©2023 James Jean, Modern Art Museum (MAM)
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