Jiang Zhi’s first series of photographs dates back to 1997. Since then, his photographic practice has combined sophisticated concepts with a strong aesthetic element. “Love Letters”, his most well-known series to date, presents burning flowers to symbolize a brilliant and graceful love song while “Among the Destined”features fictional and silent landscapes made out of tiny carbon fragments.
As the theme of this exhibition, “To make with changes” (‘Fan Cang Sang’ in Chinese) further explains the effects of subjective initiative on the so-called things. “Fan” means rules, law and model, and also means to follow the law；“Cang Sang” means that things are uncertain and constantly changing. “Fan Cang Sang” can be interpreted as “the law of change” as a noun, and emphasizes the dialectical relationship between “the passive” and “the active” as a verb — to make with changes and change with making. The new series of photographs “Emanations” is the Jiang Zhi’s new thinking of images recently. He did not follow the previous familiar techniques to create images, but established a new sense of presence in the experiment of reuse of objects and images，and disorganize and replace the way of aesthetic habits we are standardized. In the creation of Jiang Zhi, the tendency of his stage is much more clear: to produce the new perception of the image and its application are more important than the image production.
Born in Yuanjiang, Hunan Province, Jiang Zhi was graduated from China Academy of Art in 1995 and now lives in Beijing. As one of the most versatile artists of his generation, Jiang Zhi’ s work has been internationally recognized by institutions and galleries including OCAT Shenzhen, Guangzhou Times Museum, White Cube Hong Kong, Magician Space Beijing etc. Meanwhile, Jiang Zhi has numerous publications including Mu Mu (1999), Shine Upon Me (2008), Neurosis and Prattle (2008), On the White (2008), Tremble (2010), If This is a Man (2012), Love Letters (2015), Love-Addict (2016, with Chen Xiaoyun), One is All, All is One, All, Predestiny (2017)
