The chi K11 Art Museum is honored to present ‘Render’, the first solo exhibition of César Piette curated by Jiang Ye in global art museums. The exhibition will present more than twenty newly created paintings and sculptures by the artist. This project is part of the event ‘Shanghai Art Week, France is Here!’. It is also an exhibition project participating in ‘Croisements Festival – Special Presentation for the 60th Anniversary of the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations between China and France’ and the ’23rd China Shanghai International Arts Festival’. Coinciding with the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between France and China and the France-China Year of Cultural Tourism, ‘Shanghai Art Week, France is Here!’ urban walking route is jointly organized by the French Embassy in China and the French Institute. The term photorealism was first proposed by American art dealer Louis Meisel in 1968. Its original intention was to transplant photo images onto the canvas and make the works look like photos. Today, decades later, with the rise of virtual reality, 3D software is like a machine for creating images and can create realistic scenes very realistically. And the rendering technology of software can more accurately adjust shadows, highlights, colors, and perspectives that are difficult to achieve in traditional photography. Artist César Piette creates images through computer rendering and then directly spray-paints them or manually paints them on the canvas in a way that removes any traces of painting, trying to explore the subtle boundaries between photos, digital production and manual painting, guiding the audience to unfold real vision in a’representational’ way of viewing, making the audience have an illusion when watching and subverting people’s visual experience. German philosopher Martin Heidegger believes that human concepts become the measure of all things and understand and grasp the world as an image. Cesar hopes that the theme of his works comes from the era he lives in. Therefore, he abandons taking the painting theme as the purpose and instead uses traditional themes such as portraits, landscapes, and still lifes inspired by the history of painting, thus paying more attention to the creative process. This idea is clearly visible in the five new series of works such as ‘Pierrot in the Evening’ in this exhibition. The artist has never stopped paying attention to painting practice. He perfectly combines digital spray painting and painting techniques in his works, simulating the subtle relationship between painting and digital, creating an illusion of artificial intelligence. But after observing the paintings in depth, one will find the flaws dominated by the artist, thus exploring the illusion behind the material world. The word’render’ in the field of computers refers to the process of drawing and generating images. In the field of traditional painting, it refers to the technique of smearing colors on the picture and enhancing objects to increase the picture effect.
The techniques employed in the drawing process are aimed at this purpose, and rendering is no exception. César’s painting style lies between hyperrealism and hyper-artificiality, creating a parallel world beyond realism for us. These smooth, cute, and candy-colored characters and animals exude the essence and charm of digital aesthetics, reminiscent of digital applications, software, digital avatars, or emojis. The audience not only sees the tension between artificiality and reality but also the artist’s reshaping of traditional figurative art and his statement on the era. To conclude the exhibition with ChatGPT, we hope that through this exhibition, visitors can not only appreciate César’s exquisite skills but also discover thoughts on the future of humanity in his unique artistic language. This is a dialogue with oneself and the world, allowing us to deeply contemplate the era we are in while appreciating beauty. The exhibition is open from November 6th to February 16th, with specific business hours subject to the day’s opening status.
