(Xiao Fan Ru, Enjoy n°11 – 1,7,6, 2006, Öl auf Leinwand, 190×80 cm)

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Vernissage: 14. September 2006, 19 – 21 Uhr
Dauer der Ausstellung: 15. September bis 29. Oktober 2006

Xiao Fan Ru, 1954 in Nanking geboren, lebt seit 1983 in Paris. Es handelt sich um die erste Einzelausstellung des chinesischen Künstlers in Deutschland.
Seine Malerei ist zugleich gegenständlich und abstrakt und auf fröhliche und abgründige Art surrealistisch. Sei es, dass aufgeblasene Luftschlangen und Ballone auf den ersten Blick an „Kindergeburtstag“ erinnern und dann doch mehr Kondome sind, die zu Arrangements drapiert schließlich zu einer bunten Reise ins Körperinnere werden, zu Venen, Adern und Organen, vergnüglich, witzig und verwirrend/verschlingend zugleich (Serie „Bubblegame“). Sei es, dass der Künstler wie in diesem neuesten, nun in Hamburg ausgestellten Zyklus „Enjoy“ die Konsumwelt in den Armen glücklicher Käufer förmlich explodieren lässt. Der Mensch ist die Summe seiner Einkäufe? Oder: der Traum vom Einkauf ohne Grenzen? Die Bilder lassen Spielraum für vielfältige Deutungen. Das Spiel vom wollüstigem Verwirren und Verschlingen, das schon Thema früherer Serien des Künstlers war, nimmt in der Serie „Enjoy“ selbst anthropomorphe Form an.
2005 stellte Xiao Fan im Museum für Moderne Kunst in Shanghai aus.

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Chinese artist Xiao Fan Ru, born in Nanking in 1954, has resided in Paris since 1983. It is his first solo exhibition in Germany. His painting is figurative-abstract, and in a both cheerful and dark manner surreal. Be it that streamers and balloons at first glance might be associated with a children’s birthday party, but then reveal themselves to be more like condoms, which assembled in arrangements finally become a colorful journey into the inner realms of the body: turning into blood vessels, veins, and organs, simultaneously amusing and confusing/entwining (cf. the series Bubblegame). Be it that the artist, as in his most recent cycle Enjoy, which is now being presented in Hamburg, literally lets the consumer society explode in the arms of seemingly happy buyers. Thus, a woman in flip flops laughingly lugs a large number of paper bags and in addition is encircled by a swarm of handbags in an array of red, blue, green, and other colors. In another case, a young well-groomed woman in high heels is surrounded by lipsticks and shimmering perfume flacons, which with an elegant flourish she wears like a fur collar. A second woman is pushing up her shorts with both hands, as if attempting to indicate her naked legs and feet on which she is wearing sneakers, while being engulfed in a jumble of elegant high-heeled sandals, pumps, and platform shoes in vibrant colors with decorative straps and glittering appliqués. It almost appears as if in all these works the attributes of a wealthy, elegant world, as we know it from glossy magazines, were draped like pieces of clothing, gemstones or furs around utterly commonplace women caught up in situations of everyday life. Are human beings the sum of their purchases? Or is the issue rather the dream of limitless shopping? The paintings leave enough scope for multiple interpretations. In any case, the women – as well as the men and children – depicted in this series do not come across as perfectly happy in the gay hustle and bustle of the respective compositions. The expression on the face of the woman wearing the sneakers, for example, has an almost suffering touch. Will she ever be able to live out her shoe fetishism? Or would she in fact much rather exchange all these uncomfortable shoes against sneakers? The game circling around the voluptuous confusion and entanglement, which already was a theme in earlier series of the artist, itself assumes an anthropomorphic form in the series Enjoy.
Xiao Fan is a painter. The blossom motifs realized as sculptures in the context of his series Cents Fleurs  (polyester, varnish, circa 80 x 30 x 30 cm) are exceptions to the rule. Three of these are incorporated in the exhibition.
In 2005 Xiao Fan exhibited his works in the Museum of Modern Art in Shanghai.