The curator BAO Dong uses ‘too smart to be good?’ to describe works of these six artists, for their sensitivity and intelligence. This is a daily word that contains two levels of rhetorical irony. If you use smart to evaluate an artist’s work, which usually means you have to praise his/her intellect, meanwhile, you still doubt the value of intellect. In fact, ‘smart’ is always unconsciously equated with ‘petty trick’; in the context of art, smart can merely bring some tips. People are always expecting more about art: its profound sociality, political correctness, authentic experience and ultimate sensory effects, etc. ‘Smart’ is considered as a means to achieve the goals. What if we put ‘smart’ at the first place to survey art? This exhibition attempts to present that these artsits are clever, more precisely, their sensitivity and handling power towards the unsettled world. Intellect is no longer just seen as an intellectual tool, but will be stripped out as an independent object to be discussed from rhetoric and criticial theory.
As a project starting along with the gallery established, ‘A+A’ exhibition has developed into a group exhibition from the artists and the gallery going dutch. Now it invites curator and artists to participate together, focusing on presenting the indivual exploration of each artist as the starting point. In 2010, it began to take Biennale Exhibition mode. 104 artists attended “A+A” in the past nine years. Now, here the seventh exhibition comes.