About us GALLERY FUNC is a contemporary art gallery established in Shanghai since 2021. The space was located in a garden villa on Fumin Road in Jing'an District and relocated in a Carmel Court designed by the renowned French architect Alexandre Léonard in 1932. We are committed to discovering and supporting provincial and international emerging artists that are in the younger generation, broadening the horizons of vernacular contemporary art collections, promoting the development of the contemporary art market, and cultivating the younger Chinese collectors. ​ Since the establishment of the gallery, building integration has always been our guide in exploring and managing artists and works. The prerequisite of "bonding" is "connection". We focus on the inner connections between artists' works and the relationship between the artworks and the audience - thoughts, culture, emotions, epoch, techniques, etc. This purpose will constantly lead us to explore and growing. ​ Our exhibitions including multi-discipline contexts and aim to stimulate in-depth discussions of cultural attitudes and visual landscapes. With the energy of exhibitions, we are introducing a new generation of outstanding artists to collectors' horizons, helping collectors build their own aesthetic system and collections, and at the same time activating international exposures for artists who are still in the early stages of their careers. GALLERY FUNC hopes to establish an international image as a "pioneer" of contemporary art, build a bridge of spiritual integration between art and the public through the gallery as a platform, outline the profiles of different cultural milieu in contemporary art, and inspire inner spirit of this generation. General Information - Admission is always free Address Room 30, #19, No.17 Xinle Rd, Xuhui District, Shanghai, China

22 Dec , 2023 - 27 Jan, 2024 Another Parallel Bingqian Yan INSTALLATION VIEWS WORKS ARTISTS The rhythm of the body movement and the subconscious is moving with the brush. This movement not only represent the visual reproduction of the artist’s working process as a form of expression, but also to the external characteristics and potential visions of painting itself. The traces of thoughts revealed by the body and paint are narratable rather than a single monologue of the subject, Another Parallel is like the relationship between brush and hands, skin and fabric. Both have continuity and extend in the same direction in an unbindable and indestructible relationship, and the artwork emerges from the place where the relationship is established. The venture of making a painting is lost when the work is conformed to regulations or norms. Yan Bingqian’s is antithetical to pictorial meaning and result-oriented reproduction, on a fundamental level, the faces and objects that appear in the work are connections between the minutiae and the variable feelings of human beings. The text here is not an attempt to expose the process of individual psychological phenomena behind the an image, but to observe the hidden connections within this particular circumstance. Even if these small parts cannot be synthesised into a unified subject that can be understood, they exist as imprints. The indescribable in consciousness seeks itself in matter and image, and painting reveals the hidden face while protecting the artist’s secrets that further away from the viewer, before everything becomes clearer and more evident. To specificity the uniqueness of unconscious painting, a lengthy depiction and elucidation of it may seem less than a categorised conceptual definition, but I don’t think Yan Bingqian has really made any theoretical choices. We naturally translate this steady and still presence of the character in the painting into a real-life experience. On the one hand, the appearance is not only unique to the artist, it is still the effect of our sight, the viewer facing the work obtains the image through observation, on the other hand, the artist’s inner observation, thoughts and non-pensée, a unique state without a clear demarcation line, is finally united in the image here. Its appearance may be partially hidden or even meaningless, but it must be effective, so that we can obtain a focus of attention between the blankness of the work and the rhythm of the brushstrokes. Texts: Zhang Tingzhi Yan Bingqian graduated from Shanghai University of Technology in 2015 and now lives in Shanghai. Yan Bingqian uses canvases as her main medium. She is good at capturing the mutable states of people and things in order, choosing to present concrete spiritual imaginations and heterogeneous atmospheres in her works in a lightweight, illusory and astringent way, and constructing an indeterminate symbiotic relationship between space, place, objects and life.

錨點 1 Samantha Rosenwald b.1995 Ding Hongdan, born in Guangzhou in December1995, graduated from the Third Studio of Oil Painting Department of Central Academy of Fine Arts, receiving a bachelor's degree in 2018 and a master's degree in 2021. She is currently studying a Ph.D. program at CAFA, supervised by professor Liu Xiaodong. ​ WORK OVERVIEW EXHIBITIONS ARTICLES ARTWORKS 錨點 2 EXHIBITION 錨點 3

錨點 1 Gao hang b.1991 Gao Hang, born in 1991 in Baoding, China, currently lives and works in Houston, Texas. The artist evokes the new pop movement of postmodernism through the use of subject matter and colour as conceptual and structural scaffolding. ​ Artist Talk: ​ I think to have a career that one sincerely love is the best thing that can happen. So, of course I would choose this over anything. I respect art as a subject, just like any other subjects, like math, physics, astronomy, In terms of the amount of research, experiment, consistency, repetition, exploration, and discussion etc. My inspiration comes from people of my generation, in terms of how they behave online and offline. Also, art books often give me constant, reliable inspiration. I am sure my art process has something to do with my habits and obsessions. I mostly listen to standup comedy while making my work. I enjoy standup comedy that challenges general beliefs, and political correctness, yet at its core is negotiating between the observations, language, and laughter of a given performance. Then you realize that it’s no paradox, but a good conversation between the performer and the audience. At some point, my paintings are like standup comedy, they can only do so much about solving real problems. But brutal honesty, absurdity, and humor are very powerful qualities in any type of conversation. My recent paintings are concerned with image “definition” in digital graphics, especially those from the last 20 years. I understand digital graphics as 21st century “found objects”. I am interested in objects that are bathing in modern technology’s greatness, while exposing a certain rawness, oddity, or awkwardness. When I first encountered 3D modeling and graphic rendering in computer games in the late 20th century, I was totally shocked. From the last 20 years, I was inspired by the fact that how graphical spectaculars could end up being rawness and ridicule in the digital image evolution. However, it is that rawness and ridicule that triggers the same creative impulse with what the painting process can offer. The effect is an actual physical feedback during process: could be a surprise, a shifting attitude, a more extreme emotion. I want my practice to simulate a modern production method, but with a high fault tolerance WORK OVERVIEW EXHIBITIONS ARTICLES 錨點 2 ARTWORKS 錨點 3 EXHIBITION a10c0567a229ff161e5036c490c0f2f.jpg 0X0A9895.jpg GZ Contemporary Art Fair Dec 26 - Dec 29, 2021 The Fiction July 11 - Aug 11, 2021

錨點 1 Jochen Muehlen b.1995 Ding Hongdan, born in Guangzhou in December1995, graduated from the Third Studio of Oil Painting Department of Central Academy of Fine Arts, receiving a bachelor's degree in 2018 and a master's degree in 2021. She is currently studying a Ph.D. program at CAFA, supervised by professor Liu Xiaodong. ​ WORK OVERVIEW EXHIBITIONS ARTICLES ARTWORKS 錨點 2 EXHIBITION 錨點 3 DSC03452.jpg Null Protocol Oct 7 - Nov 4 2022

DETOUR June 9 - July 15 , 2023 BINGQIAN YAN & CHIH-HAN YANG & DANFENG YE & JI WON CHA& JUN LI & SUYI XU ​ INSTALLATION VIEWS WORKS ARTISTS GALLERY FUNC is presenting its first exhibition in the new space, featuring the work of six young Asian artists working and living in different regions. The etymology of medium (‘medius’ in Latin), was once defined as ‘in between’, ‘a middle ground’. It was used by Plato to describe a character between a man and god, the intertwined connection between subjective and objective, the constant endeavouring between ideal and reality. The theme of this exhibition originate from this concept, is trying to discuss the entanglement of the artist’s intention in the process of creation, trace the source of past, and the cycle of contradiction between the artist and her artworks. The representation of images and expression of contexts has been in the centre of art theory, the study of human gaze and artistic hidden intention has a special symbolic meaning: when the artist tries to reproduce the entirety of truth, this overly attempt or this excessively inspiration will turn its origin into nothingness. The task of a artist in this middle ground is full of contradictions and paradoxes. In a sense, looking directly at the "temple of nothingness", flicker in a fleeting moment. These languages curled up inside the soul, they are emotionally written in a self-concealed way, and can only be spoken through silence. Avoiding it is equivalent to choosing the eternal daylight, losing the moonlight and without the night. Compared with the motif of artistic creation, looking for the causal chain is why we are gazing. The artworks in this exhibition are a dangerous compromise between the seemingly non-existent intersections. "A dangerous environment breeds art, and hostility is the mother of invention." (John D. Peters, The Marvelous Clouds) ​ Representation and expression are at the expense of the actual existence of objects. The attribute of painting itself is not only representation, it also causes disappearance, and makes certain things have concepts through the dissolution. Compared with solid structures, the space constructed by Chih-Han Yang and the traces of suspended lines by Ji Won Cha, allow us to gain new stability and support from outside reality. Even though this reconstruction is premised on the absence of real-world object parts, this act itself has got rid of the destructive function of representation, and the texture of the painting as a medium is also reflected. ​ On a more fundamental level, there is a tacit relationship between gaze and narrative in the order of representation, and what surrounds the picture is the coexistence of various opposite relationships and metaphors. The flexible and compliant forms, are from the imitation of illusions by independent individuals: the recombined still life in Li Jun’s Life Is Falling, the symbols in Ye Danfeng’s Focus, and Xu Suyi’s Arrangement in Blue, Earth, and Ocher, hands movements with signifying relationships are within the page of a book. "The unconscious behaviour of beings, which allows their clear and bright palms to pierce the artificial fortress in which we are imprisoned", "a hand that does not belong to us knocks on the secret door of our intuition." ( Maurice Maeterlinck, Menus proposals: le théâtre ) ​ Maeterlinck depicts a door that we cannot open, but we could ‘hear the sound behind it’, as if it were a new body that no longer seems human, haunting in Yan Bingqian’s work. Perhaps for us, these invisible noises are the result of the artist’s behavioural composition and the acquisition of a new body. If we cannot see the flow of breeze, and strenuous to conjure up this transparent consciousness, it is still exists in its essential way, and must have its own sound and body to be experienced in our wandering. Texts by Tingzhi Zhang

錨點 1 DING H ongdan b.1995 Ding Hongdan, born in Guangzhou in December1995, graduated from the Third Studio of Oil Painting Department of Central Academy of Fine Arts, receiving a bachelor's degree in 2018 and a master's degree in 2021. She is currently studying a Ph.D. program at CAFA, supervised by professor Liu Xiaodong. ​ WORK OVERVIEW EXHIBITIONS ARTICLES 錨點 2 ARTWORKS 錨點 3 EXHIBITIONS 795bfbd99995a94a1b27745a0ccc1da.jpg DSC03896.jpg DING Hongdan & BO Sihan A Fund of Gifts Dec 24, 2021 - Jan 22, 2022 West Bund Art & Design 2022 Nov10 - Nov 13 2022

ORIGINIS Nov8 - Dec 10 2022 GIOVANNI MOTTA A collaboration with Gallery Kiche INSTALLATION VIEWS WORKS ARTISTS According to the 3-phase iconological method of analysis of art presented by Erwin Panofsky, the symbolic meaning of a painting consists of three levels: the primary, the conventional and the intrinsic. The process of deciphering an image level by level is to probe into the cultural and social contexts behind the two-dimensional schema and to imbue it with comprehensible contents and connotations as a subject. In Giovanni Motta’s work, a little boy known as “Jonny Boy” with his peculiar facial expressions appears recurrently, turning into a core imagery of the artist’s exploration in the realm of painting. As a hyper-realistic artist, Giovanni Motta’s artistic style is under profound influence of Katsushika Hokusai and Egon Schiele. The former, being one of the most known representative artists of orientalism, exerted influence upon Motta’s way of seeing the world through unique observation of details as well as highly emotional colors; and the latter inspired the artist to embark on a path of self-discovery through emotional intensity and unique narrative approach. Born out of these sources of inspiration, “Jonny Boy” reminds people of anime in terms of style; while aesthetically it strongly alludes to “self”. “Jonny is the child of all time, the child of everyone”, Motta once said. As an anthropomorphized collective imagery, “Jonny Boy” conveys three primary types of human emotions: “wonder” (the positive), “fear” (the negative) and “amazement” (the neutral). The various objects surrounding “Jonny Boy” in different scenes imply the different mental states of the protagonist, which in turn evokes viewers’ feelings and emotions from within. The image of the kid, innocent yet with a glimpse of pain, is captured for good through the artist’s brushstrokes. Despite the colorful cartoonish images and building blocks, Jonny’s eyes always give out the impression of void. He seems to look at somewhere beyond the image, somewhere unknown; and in the meantime, he seems to be murmuring to himself, talking about uneasiness. The ambiguous and ambivalent ambience seems to denote the ever-changing reality world in which the viewers live and the illusory nature of Jonny’s very existence, which in turn stifles viewers’ expectation for “eternity”. Despite all these, the desire for staying young forever, embedded in the very depth of our soul, and for seeking for the origin of the self still persists in the collective subconsciousness. “My Jonny Boy is always alive and alert”, as the artist put it. To constantly look back upon “authenticity” constitutes the source of nostalgia in Motta’s work. Although Motta doesn’t reject the ideas of trying something novel like NFT, AI or VR, “nostalgia” remains a fundamental motif in his practice, which could be sensed from the fact that Motta entitles his upcoming exhibition “Origins”. The word “origin” is derived from Latin, referring to the beginning of everything and the moment when things are created. “My artistic research focuses on the theme of rediscovering the inner child through recovering emotional memories”. In order to go deeper into the “beginning” of consciousness or memories, Motta tries to awaken the brain to ponder upon the origin of humanity through meditation, and to explore the private narratives between memories and emotions, memories and objects by resorting to the images generated in meditation. “Nostalgia” indicates a desire to return to someone or something once we deeply cherished – a desire that will stimulate the brain by making use of everything around it: colors, ambience, objects, people or animals… It is in those instants that inspire strong emotional experience in us that we seem to more likely to feel “presence”. In this exhibition, Motta manages to demonstrate a more sophisticated mastery of this kind of emotional narrative through the further refinement of aesthetic schema. “Game over” means the end and “Origins”, the beginning. The artist seems to be in a constant state of flux, going through crisis moments of self-doubt one after another. The continuous reflection imbues artistic exploration with inexhaustible momentum it takes to carry on. One work after another, Jonny Boy leads audience onto a journey of self-awareness, letting the latter to connect and reconnect with it. “We are only at the beginning”, of all time. Text Chen Wenyi

錨點 1 G iovanni Motta b.1971 Lives in Verona, Italy. Giovanni Motta was born into an artistic family in Verona in 1971. He expresses himself through painting and sculpture. His paintings are the result of an elaborate, complex technique based on the study of colour and form. WORK OVERVIEW EXHIBITIONS ARTICLES In Motta’s poetic output, a frequent theme is memory and recollections. The paintings and sculptures do not contrast with each other. Indeed, the objective elements and perception of reality portrayed by the former tend to enhance the idea of subjective fantasy in the latter, in keeping with the alteration and transformation involved in the combined use of the two. Motta’s works border on the realm of fantasy with their high visual impact. They start with research and expansion of childhood memories. He possesses a contemporary vocabulary that is influenced by Japanese culture, cartoons and vibrant hues that are strictly produced with spot colours. ARTWORKS 錨點 2 EXHIBITION 錨點 3 0X0A9185.jpg a10c0567a229ff161e5036c490c0f2f.jpg _DSC5147.jpg DSC03975.jpg Hidden Message Nov 10 - Dec 12, 2021 GZ Contemporary Art Fair Dec 26 - Dec 29, 2021 ORIGINIS Nov 08 - Dec 10, 2022 ART021 Shanghai Contemporary Art Fair Nov10 - Nov 13 2022 ARTICLES 錨點 4 Giovanni-Motta-1-1.jpg.webp Jonny-Boy-1.jpg.webp NFT and meditation: Giovanni Motta and the search for the inner child @The Cryptonomist Giovanni Motta and his success in the NFT world @The Cryptonomist

錨點 1 Millie Kelly b.1993 Millie Kelly is a London-based artist, originally from Teignmouth, Devon. Her paintings are purposefully seen as ‘kitsch’ lying somewhere between figuration and abstraction. Working with oil on canvas, she has had exhibitions in galleries such as the Oxo tower in London, and won the prestigious Clyde & Co award in 2015-16. WORK OVERVIEW EXHIBITIONS ARTICLES 錨點 2 ARTWORKS 錨點 3 EXHIBITION 0X0A9185.jpg DSC04029.jpg Hidden Message Nov 10 - Dec 12, 2021 ART021 Shanghai Contemporary Art Fair Nov10 - Nov 13 2022