MICHAEL ZHENG ::::

By exploring the poetic state of utopia—the delicate, the beautiful, and the fleeting— Michael Zheng represents the idea and memory of the 60s through expressive form(s). Negrosunshinerainbowartforum is made from the May 2006 Artforum cover, which depicts Glenn Ligon’s Warm Broad Glow (2005) as it was installed at the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston in 2006, a neon sign that reads “negro sunshine.” Zheng cuts a number of issues of the same cover until a desired set of colors is produced. As a result of the cutting, a gash of rainbow eventually appears instead of what would otherwise be grayscale, at once subverting and reinforcing the indexical effort of Ligon’s piece. Zheng will also perform at the opening reception.

Zheng, an SFAI alumnus, lives and works in San Francisco and Beijing. Recently he has been an artist-in-residence at Ateliers Höherweg in Düsseldorf (Germany). Upcoming exhibitions include the Vancouver Sculpture Biennale in Vancouver; 55 Days of Chinese Art in Valencia, Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno in Spain. Past exhibitions include Kunstfilmtag, Künstlerverein Malkasten in Düsseldorf; Reincarnation, Doris McCarthy Gallery at the University of Toronto Scarborough in Canada; and Emerge 2006 GenArt in San Francisco. www.michaelzheng.org