Li Rui

Goedhuis Contemporary is pleased to announce the first exhibition in the United States of the
leading young exponent of the New Realism in China.

Li Rui graduated from the elite Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing in 2008 and has rapidly
asserted himself as an audacious and original representative of the avant-garde in China.
He forms part of the new wave of younger artists emerging in China who are no longer looking over
their shoulder at what the West expects of them. They have acquired a new self-confidence that
translates into original work that is no longer ashamed of alluding to sources embedded deep in
classical Chinese culture.

Li Rui is interested in China's past, both archeological and cultural. He is also interested in exploring
the link with the past that Chinese artists today have, whether or not they acknowledge it, in
beautifully crafted but elliptical ways. His broken eggshells in nests refer metaphorically to the early
roots of Chinese culture, now partly smashed but still beautiful, and held together in nests that allude
to the binding units of Chinese national awareness. His bones, on the other hand, refer less
ambiguously to the archaeological treasure that remains in Chinese soil, but symbolize both the past
and also its survival.

Li Rui's unabashed espousal of pictorial beauty and brilliant technical virtuosity are further evidence
of this decisive rupture with the tired pieties of yesterday's aesthetics.
His choice of subject matter—bones of birds and eggshells—reach for the origin of China's past and
reflect the quest for cultural roots that has become an increasingly urgent mission for many of the
more thoughtful artists in China today.

For further information please contact Michael Goedhuis or Rebecca Durnin, Gallery Director, at
(212) 535-6954. Images available upon request.