Breathing the Universe 

呼吸宇宙

Scenery (风景)

"Scenery" aims to present and extend discussions related to the "aesthetic complex" in a careful yet playful manner, navigating the subtle boundaries between reality and rhetoric, text and interpretation, and literary qualities and visual impact. By selecting names associated with landscapes from the color names systematically assigned by paint manufacturers both domestically and internationally, each corresponding color is precisely measured and sealed in a seven-inch transparent bag, resembling a circulated postcard that can even be privately owned by viewers. Each card is wrapped in a modified paper bag printed with the color name and code, and they are neatly stored in nine wooden boxes fixed to the exhibition wall in a grid formation. Through the cyclic process of "drawing, browsing, and searching for cards," viewers continuously engage in an imaginative interaction with the text-based emotional "imaginations" of scenery. Opening the cards prompts a simultaneous experience of both painting and photography, encouraging a reexamination and contemplation of the concept of scenery.

The exhibition project "Breathing the Universe" includes two artworks, "Scenery" and "A Bed Sheet from the Countryside." "Breathing the Universe" is calligraphy engraved in the Ming Dynasty on Mount Tai.

A Bed Sheet from the Countryside  (一张从乡下来的床单儿)

"A Bed Sheet from the Countryside" unfolds an experiential journey that attempts to perceive the "whole" through the exploration of its "parts." This artwork borrows a hand-woven bed sheet from Wugong County, Shaanxi Province, previously used in the creation process of "A Painting of Thought," and imbues it with the potential for continuous growth, recombination, and expansion into the future. It faithfully and meticulously reproduces every line generated during the weaving process, not only capturing the essence of laborious craftsmanship but also revealing the harmonious variations between order and errors, vividly presenting the traces of labor. The process of transforming 1-millimeter color dots from the original object into a 100-millimeter grid can be likened to the "blurring" effect of "pixel expansion" in digital image processing. The double-layered grid, sculptural and tactile in nature, not only enhances the suspended texture of the material but also introduces a sense of "temporality" into the space. Through countless flows, recombinations, and continuations, the artwork aims to accumulate layers of cognitive experiences regarding the "bed sheet" and foster an open, liberated posture that allows for both contemplation and relaxation in the collective journey of growth.

Signals from Heaven,Signals from Heaven.

有神的信号，有神的信号。

Signals from Heaven,Signals from Heaven. （有神的信号，有神的信号。）

In the present exhibition, the artist displays nine “spiritu-al,” box-like little cabins that he brought back from Nangqian and Ganzi. ZhaoYao brought these very simple cabins into the exhibition room . The stories presented in each cabin are extracted from online TED talks dating from 2006 to nowadays. The artist has turned these talks into very personal monologues. Their contents revolve around themes of war, the self, education, identity, race, the sense of ceremony, and other issues that confront mankind in its entirety. As these self-presentations, rooted in individual experience, undergo a process of artistic editing, they come to form a new text and to constitute a new collectiveness in the exhibition hall.

There are other signals, there are other signals. (有其它的信号，有其它的信号。)

"There are other signals, there are other signals" as a continuation and development of the artwork "Signals of the Divine, Signals of the Divine." This artwork showcases the creation of "intention" as an objective object, presented in a continuous state of use, reproducing a dialogue that took place in a hotel in Baiyu County in 2018 during the creation of "Signals of the Divine, Signals of the Divine." The voices of the four participants, speaking in dialect, are allocated to four white houses brought from the local area. The dialogue discusses their stories, experiences, and perspectives related to pain in their practice of "Yixiguru." The translation is separated from the sound, and the synchronization and timeliness of the voice and content are separated, delaying the semantics. The sound, emotions, and textual language are presented and experienced sequentially.

Spirit Above All

精神高于一切

Spirit Above All  2016～2017（ 精神高于一切）

Spirit Above All is a large-scale installation located on Mountain Zenggaer, at Moye Temple in Baizha at Nangqian County, Yushu Tibetan autonomous prefecture, in China. The work is 116-meter long and 86-meter wide, which is a continuation and development of 2012 Spirit Above All. The 10, 000-square-meters work was fastened on top of Mt. Zenggaer with the help of more than 150 local villagers and lamas, alongside the existing Buddhist sutra streamers, white pagoda, and cliffside murals in the valley, echoing the local natural and cultural environment. The work was exposed to natural environment for a whole winter and then collected and displayed. The project aims to establish multiple cultural projects via local cooperation under the theme of “drying painting”. Meanwhile, various changes of the work was monitored and recorded, throughout which process the work welcomed visitors continuously.

The Power of Nature: A Ten Thousand Square Meter Painting in Beijing 

18th May 2018 (自然的力量: 一万平米作品在北京)

The Power of Nature was a happening, a ritual, and an exhibition of Spirit Above All carried out at the Workers’ Stadium in Beijing. It was the first full-display of the near 10,000-square-meters painting after its return from rural Tibetan areas to the urban environment, and an important continuation of this series of work. The exhibition also recalls institutional and collective memories inherent to the Workers’ Stadium, a monumental public sphere with unique cultural significance in Beijing and China, and thereby the most appropriate exhibition venue for the enormous painting Spirit Above All.

Spirit Above All (2012) 精神高于一切

This is a series of works of abstract geometric game patterns in black, white, and grey on denim based on A Painting of Thought. They were taken to Tibet and blessed by monks after completion. On the basis of previous education and experience, the works bring people’s attention to the concept beyond the painting, challenging their thinking patterns and the habitual understanding of contemporary art.

About the "Spirit Above All" Stone

精神石头

About the "Spirit Above All" Stone（ 精神石头）

“Spirit Above All” Stone is a continuous work that works together with a Tibetan artisan who carves Marnyi Stone. From 2017 onwards, he started to carve the Tibetan sentence “Spirit Above All”(བསམ་བློའི་མཐོ་ཚད་ཀུན་གྱི་མཆོག) onto stones of different sizes in the way that local Marnyi Stones were carved.They will continue to display and spread the sentence in different forms and ways.

Untitled (Spirit Above All) Workshop 无题(心灵高于一切)工作坊

This workshop project is planned as a parallel and independent ongoing project alongside the artwork "Spirit Above All Stone". By participating in the creation of grinding soap, a more immersive experience is achieved between art and product. The process of grinding soap is not only derived from the methods used by nuns in the southern French church but also similar to the way people in the Tibetan region create "rub-rubs" using mud. The multi-sensory experiences touched upon during the workshop will establish broader connections between different minds and cultures.

Something in the Air （有一团神气）

This artwork is an inflatable model of a stone, engraved with the Tibetan words བསམ་བློའི་མཐོ་ཚད་ཀུན་གྱི་མཆོག or“Spirit Above All.”It has been magnified one million times.The original stone was specially produced by a local Marnyi stone artisan for the “SpiritAbove All”series, for which Zhao carved the phrase onto many rocks of different sizes.Using Marnyi stones as inspiration, the artist has now created his newest artwork, Something in the Air, a “huge but hollow” inflatable Marnyi stone. Perched between sky and sea the air inside seems to be charged with acertain energy.

PVC laminated fabric, 1480 x 1430 x 690 cm

A Painting of Thought

很有想法的绘画

A Painting of Thought （很有想法的绘画）

The series of paintings originated from several books of puzzle games. The thick paint of highly saturated acrylic produces a texture of plastic. The patterns on found fabrics, with ready-made images, ready-made colors, and ready-made cloth as well as the existing understanding of painting, trigger a reaction from collective aesthetics in different cultural and cognitive levels.  

Repetition Exhibitions 

You Can’t See Me, You Can’t See Me （你看不见我,你看不见我）

The solo exhibition You Can’t See Me, You Can’t See Me on June, 12, 2012 is a repetition and exaggeration of the solo exhibition I am Your Night on June, 12, 2011. At the same time, in the same place, after a whole year, the same person invites artists and audiences to reflect together on “creation” and “innovation”. 

I am Your Night（我是你的黑夜）

The solo exhibition I am Your Night on June, 12, 2011 dialectically explores, in a seemingly absurd way, how a concept comes into being and transmits, and invites the audience to join the conversation. The exhibition “interprets and generates the information of works of art” in an exhibition system that is built from existing concepts.

Other Exhibitions 

The Last Egg（最后一个鸡蛋）

The exhibition invented a special material made from calcium carbonate powder, which produces a layer of egg shell on the walls of the exhibition hall. The edges of the egg shell on the walls reflect seven greatly-fluctuated graphs. Graphs come from a variety of analytical statements, which symbolizes the human desire to render everything as controllable and predictable.

51m2 3# Zhao Yao（51平方 3#赵要）

The exhibition consists of three works. "Smile" features various banknotes from around the world with smiling face symbols, with the backgrounds painted over and arranged together. "Silence" showcases coins from different countries, their surface information polished off and gathered together. "Account Book" presents a variety of numbers recorded on a two-centimeter-wide fabric strip.

Great Performance

伟大的表演

Great Performance（伟大的表演）2014

This work is derived from two media images, which are photographed again with the built-in kaleidoscope special effect filter of the iPad, and then printed onto synthetic leather.The exhibition connects “seeing” with “looking on”, linking “looking on at the exhibition” with “looking on at the events”, which tries to discuss the multiplicity of visual culture within the contemporary society.

Great Performance（伟大的表演）2013

This work is derived from two media images, which are photographed again with the built-in kaleidoscope special effect filter of the iPad, and then printed onto synthetic leather.The exhibition connects “seeing” with “looking on”, linking “looking on at the exhibition” with “looking on at the events”, which tries to discuss the multiplicity of visual culture within the contemporary society.

Other Works 

Cosmo Black is Spinning Around（宇宙黑在旋转）

A piece of the “Cosmo Black” square was placed on top of the automatic dual-axis solar tracker and permanently installed in the mountains. From then on it would look into the dome of the sky above, always following the movement of the sun. Cosmo black is Mercedes car standard color 191#.  The exhibition started from June 5th, 2016.

Wonder（奇迹）

The work is based on the reproduction of carpets produced according to Google satellite photos of airports. Seen from a God’s point of view: The images are all constructions of enormous human productivity, which vary diversely in texture with the changes of the four seasons, displaying collective human creativity.

I Love Beijing 999（我爱北京999）

This is a long-term project full of fun. Starting from the winter of 2008, I went out almost every day when the sun was out. What I did is to ride in a bus for its whole trip and take snapshots of the sun, placing it right in the center of the frame. After taking hundreds of sun pictures, I displayed them in the speed of 9 frames per second. What you see is me passively chasing the sun. The sun that’s always in the center of the image. The whole project was completed in November2009, by then I had gone through nine-hundred and ninety-nine bus lines in Beijing.