We are very very excited to announce that our online shop is officially opened!
If you would like to get to know our products, be sure to come over to our physical store!
We are very very excited to announce that our online shop is officially opened!
If you would like to get to know our products, be sure to come over to our physical store!
6th Sept - 4th Oct 2019
STEAMROOM Creative is proud to present JJ XIA for its debut launch a brand new collaboration with Chinese artist and politician Jian Jun Xi 奚建军. Opening for the first time, the STEAMROOM BASEMENT will serve as a hub for the local creative community and become a space “fun and exciting for everyone”.
STEAMROOM’s founding beliefs of sustainability, environmental responsibilities, supporting local and community designers and celebrating one’s cultural heritage with support for new Asian designers, correlates directly with Xi’s involvement and support of Chinese and British cultural exchange. As current chairman of the Chinese Art Association, Xi continues to be involved in numerous large public art projects in China inviting some of the most active and prestigious international curators and artists.
Based in London and Shanghai JJ Xi’s career embodies his concern for and the expression of unstable images and concepts, which release the dual meanings of nature and man-made. As the founding member of China’s first Action Art Group "Concept 21", which played a significant role for Chinese contemporary art in the 1980’s, Xi has continued to shock and amuse the art world. His partnership with artist CAI Yuan established the "Mad For Real" group in 1999 which saw the beginning of a series of performance works specialising in art intervention. ‘Two Artists Jump on Tracey Emin’s Bed’ and ‘Two Artists Piss on Duchamp’s Urinal’ have been coined as “the most provocative art today” with the works featuring in various art institutions and public spaces including the Tate and Trafalgar square. The duo continues to make work but have since diversified, engaging in numerous works across both Asia and Europe.
As the first artist as part of the STEAMROOM Creative project, the BASEMENT aims to bring together a new space of sustainability and creativity, the first of its kind in Greater London.
The Arabian Night series
Artist JJ Xi’s analysis of reality and artistic intuition is mainly embodied in his concern for and expression of unstable images, which release the dual meanings of nature and man-made. This idea is also reflected in the artist's series of paper works. He used many British classical copperplate prints three hundred years ago and painted simple stripes or lightning-like colors or clipped other images on the copperplate with color pens. This intentionally enhanced the conflict of the pictures by means of "broken rings". Thus, a new painting language was created. He stripped the lofty things contained in the pictures and broke the light-dark relationship and harmonious order of the previous paintings, thus reconstructing the new order of cold and warm, balance and destruction, classical and popular. Throughout Xi‘s works, whether installation works or paper works, are full of such a conceptual approach or linguistic logic: construction, deconstruction, and reconstruction.
with Artist JJ XI Presented by Jiji Young
