My age, my beast, who will ever

Look into your eyes.

And with his own blood glue together

The backbones of two centuries?

Osip Mandelstam (1891-1938) wrote down the poem The Age (1923) at the beginning of the 20th century. While expressing his visions and hopes for the age, it also shed light on the conflicts between "poet and his time". In another poem he wrote later, it read: "No, I am no one's contemporary". (1924)

The Age as quoted in Giorgio Agamben's What Is the Contemporary? and Alain Badiou's The Century . In What Is the Contemporary?, Agamben explained "The contemporary is he who firmly holds his gaze on his own time so as to perceive not its light, but rather its darkness. All eras, for those who experience contemporariness, are obscure." Badiou, when quoting the poem at the end of the 20th century, pointed out that Mandelstam's "beast" as a newborn and fragile presence was doomed to be transient. What Badiou was trying to break was exactly this "backbone". 

It is widely acknowledged that the 20th century was a century of division. And to gain insights into such "division" takes not only knowledge of what happened in this century, but also of what the people of this century were thinking. If we merely label things that happened without probing into what the people of the century were thinking, we can neither get to truly know the present nor prevent things from repeating themselves. In this same logic, this century would have nothing to with the "future" since its very beginning. 

You and I as people of some experience of the contemporary are the minimum unit to constitute the complex and multi-layered veins of time of contemporaneity. Hence we shall not follow linear time to describe the nature of things. The exhibition on view, as celebration of the fifth anniversary of the HOW Art Museum (Shanghai), features over 30 pieces of installations and videos by more than 20 artists both at home and from abroad including Lee Bul, Liu Wei, Zhang Peili, Lin Tianmiao, Markus Lüpertz and Carsten Nicolai. Different from the usual curatorial approach that follows a linear timeline to present the works within museum collection, the exhibition follows the principle of "contemporary is he who firmly holds his gaze on his own time". Under the title "You as Me", "you" and "I" are the core of the dialogue with the space, to fill up the absence of subject and scene, reflect upon the tragedies of the century, build connections between contemporary events and past reference, define time from a sociological perspective, treat the "contemporary" as a dividing point between the past and the future, disrupt and reverse language on the cultural level through social installation, rethink of the cultural representations beyond the physical body to confront the fragmented digital world, and morph into an organic life form that cannot be written off in this digital world. 

However, the attempt to construct non-linear histories through creative reassemblages of time is in itself trapped in the modern view of history. The underlying narratives among different works are merely judgements based on information fed to us from the outside. You and I need to firmly hold our gaze so as to perceive not its light, but rather its darkness.

Song Ling: I'm Also Starting to Have Desires

In 2013, Song Ling decided to go back to Hangzhou and set up his own studio here after staying in Australia for 27 years. To him, it marked a brand new start. 

In 1988, when the "85 New Wave Movement" was in its full swing, as a member of the "Pond Society" and important participant of the exhibition 1985 New Space, Song Ling chose to "escape": he moved to Australia, got married, had a son, and became a half-Australian. During the process, he didn't really give up painting and had several exhibitions in Australia. But on the whole he was at a relatively marginal position and missed the 1989 China Avant-Garde Exhibition, the emergence of Chinese contemporary on the global stage in the 1990s, new media experiments, conceptual art movement and the drastic developments of Chinese contemporary art since the threshold of the 21st century. By the time when he came back to China in 2013, the first wave of Chinese contemporary art movement had come to a temporary halt and bubbles around the art market had burst. With the increasing growth of the art system which had witnessed the emergence and booming development of art museums, galleries, biennales, art fairs and art zones, it seemed the art market was entering a new stage featuring rational development. 

When Song Ling came back he immediately saw in his previous "comrade-in-arms" such as Zhang Peili, Geng Jianyi and Wang Qiang as well as young artists who were completely new to him the verve and energy that had been lost for quite some time in himself. It refreshed his memories of the New Wave Movement in the 1980s. As a witness and participant of those vibrant years, even though now the time and environment changed, his passion was reignited. At that moment, he decided to stay in China to revive the passion and ideals that had been lost in the 20 years of mundane life in Australia. It was also at that moment that he said "I'm also starting to have desires".

The exhibition could be deemed as a review of the past ten years since Song's return and the four series on view, namely Fabricated, Study, Animal and Make Ado about Nothing, have all been created during this period. Meaningless Choice No. 61 (2013) was the very first piece of work he created after his return; and the most recent series Make Ado about Nothing (2022) was created during the Covid-19 pandemic. Meaningless Choice No. 61?  is a diptych featuring two symmetrical camels in standing posture and leaning towards each other. As a continuance of his signature use of flat brushstroke and black-and-white color, even though he retains the basic form and light-shadow structure of camel, the camels in his work seem to have been deprived of the details supposed to be seen in the body of animal. The overall image is reminiscent of both fine delineation in charcoal as well as black-and-white photography. Similar to the Human – Pipeline series he created during the 85 New Wave, the image radiates a sense of "loneliness, indifference and mystery", keeping a distance from the bodies and emotions of the viewers. In the eyes of viewers, what the artist depicts is more like an "object" than a camel. This kind of painting language that has been deprived of all emotions and physical perceptions seems to confirm that "painting is object". The "object" here refers to new subject brimming with initiative rather than a merely "thing". 

Such an idea runs through all his practice. Under his painting brush, animals are not animals, architecture not architecture, utensils not utensils, landscape not landscape, and food not food… Skeleton turns into "marble" (Wildlife – Skull, 2015); injector, mechanical device (Fabricated series, 2015-2017); mechanical device, ballet dancer (Simulation series, 2019); birds and insects mutate into mechanical birds and insects (A Study of Album of Song Dynasty, 2018); ancient landscape, futuristic architecture (A Study of Hong Ren's Album of Landscape Studies, A Study of Song Dynasty Album, A Study of Bada Shanren and A Study of Ma Yuan, 2021 - 2022); and inside of food, spine and viscera of human beings (Make Ado about Nothing, 2022)… What the artist endeavors to do is neither to reveal the alienation of object or nature nor to express concern over industrialization and technologies; on the contrary, he intends to endow these objects, the nature and technologies with new image and new verve. The "absence of human beings" lays a deeper foundation for these works and differentiates them from his previous works (i.e. the Human – Pipeline series). Probably the self-materialization, self-technicalization and self-colonization of human beings are exactly what the artist truly wants to express and "being-towards-death" of the post-anthropocene is virtually the real theme of these works. 

"I'm also starting to have desires". It's both a mourning of one's own history and a perpetual warning of the present and future brimming with uncertainties. Take the Make Ado about Nothing series created during the pandemic for instance. Daily objects such as blade, lighter, tomato, poker card, bulb, pin, matchbox and glasses that have been magnified several times, even dozes of times, are presented in front of viewers like specimens from the field. In his works, the objects that were once integral parts of our life are mutated and deprived of any sense of dailiness. But in the meantime, they seem to radiate a looming sense of upset and threat as if they'd stab us at any time. In this sense, it is the painting-object rather than the painted objects that occupies the perception territory of the artist and us; and it is the desires of the painting itself rather than of the artist that drag the artist and us into danger. 

In 1922, British archaeologist Howard Carter discovered the golden mask of Tutankhamun, which is regarded as the "discovery of the century". In 1986, the Sanxingdui archaeological site was unearthed in Sichuan, China, the strange bronze masks found there were astonishingly described as "relics of extraterrestrial beings". The masks, discovered across borders and time, symbolize sacrifice, ritual, the gateway to the other world, and the mysteries of civilization.

Oriental Mystery delves into the outside world's imagination and misinterpretation of the orient. The exhibition marks a prelude to Etsu Egami's upcoming "Orientalism" trilogy.

Born in Japan in 1994, Etsu Egami grew up in the United States and Europe. She studied at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in China and HFG in Germany. Being one of the most active emerging artists of Japan, the rich experience of living and studying in different counties on the one hand enables her to practice in a cross-cultural and cross-language context, and on the other, gives her the opportunity to experience the subtleties and diversities of different native languages.

From Giacomo Puccini's Madama Butterfly (1907), James Hilton's Lost Horizon (1933), to the myriad forms of Orientalist imagination in Western cultural products prompt a strong sense of resistance in Egami, particularly to the stereotypical image of the conforming Japanese woman. Like in the starting lines in Hōjōki, the layering of Orientalisms is not just a phenomenon in the West, but also self-, relative-, and situated-orientalizing within Asia, which are all part and parcel of Etsu Egami's reflections and expressions. "The rest is history," as it is often said of the complexities and multiplicities that would unfold beyond the initial line, as the histories are all inscribed in the paintings to be shown.

The artist's usual human faces and figures, in myriad forms of expression and interaction, are drenched in brushes, and lines, or being and becoming form as the vivid colors and even voids in between take shape. An academic in her own right with a doctorate degree from the Central Academy of Art, Beijing, Etsu Egami's reflections on forms of Orientalism both theoretically and aesthetically bring her to consider even images in Hong Kong martial arts movies popular in Japan in the 2000s (that the artist grew up with), the inexorable comparison of the Tutankhamun mask, Sanxingdui figures, and the "aliens" in popular culture. All these imagery, imagination, symbol, and signals are interwoven into the artist's paintings which are more than a dissertation on cultural studies but are the very lived experience of participatory and reflexive engagement in the said cultural contexts all at the same time. 

Quite apart from the integration (with tensions, as Egami reminded above) of form and meaning in the artist's work, there is also an art historical dimension to Etsu Egami's world of knowledge (as in the conjunction of theories of Orientalisms and lived experiences). The artist has her own take on the characteristics of the three generations of Post-War Japanese artists. The first Post-War generation tended to represent austere topics or Oriental philosophy such as Gutai and Mono-ha. The second generation featured symbolisms of Japanese popular- and sub-cultures such as Manga and Otaku. The current generation, with which Egami affiliates, is free of the weight of history and cultural representation, is global in outlook, and is concerned about issues pertaining to humanity in general. This generation is also acutely concerned about diversity and inclusivity, such as women and other minority groups.  

Allow me to introduce an artist who observes human behavior and shapes their own persona from the perspective of an "extraterrestrial being." Through the concept of mimesis consciousness, they create artworks that disrupt viewers' preconceived notions of the established reality. The works of Ray chi resemble gateways to a future world, with their mysterious forms and fantastical interplay of light and shadow unintentionally giving rise to the language of the future.

Humans not only establish their identities and social positions through their life experiences but also engage in the process of mimesis to transcend these fixed positions and experiences, exploring a more expansive and complex linear network (referring to neural network models). From the entrance of this exhibition, it is evident the creative prowess and rebellious spirit of Ray chi, exemplifying philosopher Gilles Deleuze's emphasized ideology of "unbecoming disciplined." They refuse to accept any external constraints, persistently pursuing the innocent expression of their inner selves and designing the future. They seek a form of creative existence that is open, fluid, and presents a dynamic and ever-changing artistic visage.

The exhibition not only showcases their authentic individual life trajectory but also encompasses the societal and cultural contexts involved in their self-expression. During the underground rock era of the 1990s, their band acted as a "rebellious torrent," roaring towards the forefront of the world. In the early 21st century, during the era of independent magazines, they became a fashion icon. Subsequently, in the era of multicultural media, their photography style became an alternative paradigm, capturing attention with their free-spirited expression just like their unconventional discourse. In the year 2020, marked by the arrival of the digital revolution, their artwork on canvas delves deeper, displaying introspection and philosophical contemplation. Simultaneously, digital artistic avenues bring to life the interstellar journeys that exist within their imagination.They constantly combine styles and symbolic elements from different cultures and timelines, and their works emit profound meaning and spirituality. The concept of the "linear network" guides the audience into a space that is simultaneously real and unreal, providing a unique artistic and sensory experience. Now, I invite you all to immerse yourselves in the innocent and pure world of this "extraterrestrial being." 

As far as Xu Mo's concerned, bigfoot epitomizes the primeval state of human being and is capable of independent thinking and acting on the levels of cognition, emotion, intention and action. As someone who is not insensitive and refuses to conform to the mainstream society, Xu has always remained vigilant and suspicious of the reality world around him and held fast to the naturalness and wildness once rooted in bigfoot. 

The image of tiaotiao, the urban bigfoot featured in Xu Mo's works, derives from the unidentified subject Patterson and Gimlin shot in California in 1967. Taking that as a point of departure, the artist has transformed and developed it into a somehow cartoonized figure – a fluffy "bigfoot hanging out in urban space" in whom the blending of genes from both the bigfoot and modern man can be perceived. 

Resorting to the appropriation of art history, Xu replaces the male figure in The Absinthe Drinker, a portrait by Picasso completed during his blue period, with the image of tiaotiao in A Corner of the Pub. The melancholy expression on the face of the man in Picasso's work is substituted by a thoughtful smile. Be Happy also features a scene in a pub. Here tiaotiao with his mouth wide open is about to devour the book in his hands. The cubist painting on the upper left corner is a homage paid to Picasso. Other cartoon characters, like the wooden Popeye and the bunny in front of a brick wall, while wearing smiles on their face, provocatively challenge the mass production of so-called "urban art" which often leads to a visual emphasis on shallow cuteness. The same provocativeness could also be seen in Alive in which an octopus covers its body with its arms while giving an intriguing smile. 

Ever since he was a little kid, with the help of dictionary Xu Mo began to "probe into" boxes of magazines such as Probe stacked at home and was deeply intrigued by the dark matters, monsters, lizardman, aliens and the various ghosts and spirits depicted in these magazines. In Xu's works, outlandish collages are often scattered across the images. The somewhat mysterious messiness therefore created fosters senses of uneasiness and restlessness. With tiaotiao merging seamlessly into a variety of characters – i.e. the seven sagas of bamboo grove in modern context, Chinese uncles engaging in square dancing, shopaholic girl, fat nerds who base their life on the screen and youngsters who choose to lie flat – it seems he is virtually everywhere and can be virtually everyone, imbuing an extraordinary sense of reality into the artist's works. In the meantime, the artist chooses to delineate lies and deceits in real life in a subjective manner through body movements and games; as a result, with the white backdrop enhancing visual contrast, the paintings radiate a metaphorical sense of profoundness and self-mockery. 

The exhibition will also feature two groups of sculptures. In the Self-Fashioning series, with his arms stretching around his knees, tiaotiao's body is presented in a somehow twisted state. The big grin on his face gives out a sense of living the "moment". The two sculptures from this series are installed on each side of the exhibition entrance, reminding people of the stone guardians erected at tomb passages in ancient time. The clown featured in Cash-Spiting-Out Clown is based on a performance work by the owner of Art Ganster Club who previously gave a performance at an art fair: giving out cash on site. The three sculptures in three different positions - standing upright, kneeling pronely and sitting crookedly – all spit out dollar bills with tiaotiao's portrait on. Together with the banknotes scattered on the floor, a cynical sense of irony towards the industry could be perceived. 

To Xu Mo, the "urban bigfoot" personifies a confrontationist with idealism. In A Discourse on Inequality, Rousseau raised the question that if a comparison was to be made between modern and natural man, who was happier? According to Rousseau, the answer was out of question – the natural man. Natural man might own nothing materially speaking; but compared with modern man, they were more abundant spiritually and enjoyed a life with low desires and hence lower cost of time and energy. As a "urban bigfoot", tiaotiao demonstrates both Xu Mo's vision to confront the reality world and a path of quantifiable self-attitudes. Under its various forms and images, the "urban bigfoot" contains the possibilities for diverse thinking and expression.

Hip-hop originated from the evolutions of power structures in urban space. Minority groups strived to define their cultural zones through music parties and graffiti. Later on as hip-hop got trendy, it greatly promoted the exploration of different groups of people and classes for urban spatial resources and cultural discourse rights in a variety of forms including street dance, skateboarding, rap and graffiti. 

Huang Yulong's "hoodie man" series draws inspiration from hip-hop. Street dance and other street activities are both a reawakening of the disciplined bodies, a challenge to the uniformly confined space, and a longing for a broader spiritual space. Physical bodies of the "hoodie man" become invisible behind the symbolic garments, pushing people to reconsider and reflect on the meaning of bodies. Their unique body language and the sense of energy radiated from the creases of the garments demonstrate that human body is not just what Foucault described as targeted object of modern power system but also a site for self-expression and infinite possibilities. 

Faces of the "hoodie man" in Huang Yulong's work are missing, leaving behind a deep and dark void. As symbol of identity and a carrier of histories and individual memories, when face disappears, the established social identity of a person disappears along with it. In other words, when the face goes missing, the person is detached from his/her previous context of existence. According to the "role theory", people of different identities tend to behave predictably similar in similar contexts. And hip-hop in itself fosters such a "similar context". People detach themselves from their social roles in reality, taking on hoodies as their common "skin" to establish a cultural identity. They are people with missing faces, and in return it allows them to take on new roles in the new contexts and systems. 

Unified feature and appellation mean they engage in the construction of the field under collective identity. Each "hoodie man" is part of that collective. Their bodies express their spiritual appeals through drastic releases in collective activities. Their bodies are more likely to become impulsive, tense and energetic as a collective than as individuals. In the meantime, the bodily rhythms and protests of individuals gain legitimacy within a collective. 

In Huang Yulong's sculptures, where supposed to be faces is now filled with empty "shadow". In the "shadow theory", Jung regarded the shadow as the unconscious layer suppressed in one's personality. It tended to be primitive, passionate, aggressive and fanatical; and it also imbued people with dynamism, energy, creativity and vitality. Shadow and non-shadow collectively constitute a complete personality. All men have to confront their own shadow, and all men are able to draw energy from it. 

When the face is missing and identity erased, the premise for people to enter a "carnival moment" is established. According to Bakhtin's "carnival theory", man lives two lives: one is brimming with conventions and hierarchies and the other, on the contrary, is carnivalesque. "Carnival" fundamentally speaking is deconstruction of culture, a cultural strategy that civilians devise to create an equal and free world. In the contemporary context, "carnival" can be manifested in numerous forms including bullet-screen comments, memes, nightclubs and street dance. In essence, all cultures that deconstruct the existing rigid systems are "carnivalesque". When detached from their identity in reality, people are liberated from the world that is structured, hierarchical, segregated and in which they always need to wear a mask, and ready to enter the "carnival moment". The "hoodie man" represent exactly such a state: fully unleashed, free and spontaneous, real and unrestrained. 

Missing faces, erased identity, carnivalization and gamification - visual symbols and cultural elements unique to the "hoodie man" – can all be categorized as "lightweight civilization". In lightweight civilization, heaviness and rigidity – manifestation of "weight" – become the objects of deconstruction. "Lightness" leads to revolutions of symbols and cultures. The "hoodie man" with their rhythmic bodies, missing faces and smooth contour lines demonstrate the power of lightness: the lightness of matter and the lightness of sprit. Brightness of the mirror texture and elegantly fluctuant movements dissolve senses of rigidity and heaviness. Through release of the once disciplined body and abandonment of stereotyped masks, the artist manages to cast light on the polysemy, ambiguity and openness of lightweight aesthetics. 

Artist Kang Shixin develops a painting language of his own through images that are non-narrative and beyond definition. Iridescent colors, gravity-free space of suspension with binary structures and a multi-dimensional narrative language with images and texts fusing together – what he delineates is the primitive ecology of the metaverse aesthetics that is timeless and ageless. 

Born and raised in Qingdao, Kang Shixin goes to the beach quite often. Floating in the sea, one'd profoundly feel the deep solitude brought about by the embrace of seawater, and the efforts to resist gravity to prevent sinking. Looking up into the sky from sea, the serenity (transient though) enables him to escape all the hustle and bustle of life for a while and immerse himself fully in the romantic and imaginative universe he weaves. All these account for the sense of childish innocence that prevails Kang's work. With a degree in oil painting, Kang resorts to classic Chinese painting textbooks such as the Manual of the Mustard Seed Garden to find the suspended space with no perspectives through patterns and brushworks unique to Chinese culture, something very different from the "superflat" proposed by Takashi Murakami. In Kang Shixin's work, a somewhat fragmented method of creation leads to an effect reminiscent of traditional Chinese picture-story book: independent on their own and organically connectedly if seen as a whole. 

This exhibition features some of Kang Shixin's latest works. Sweet colors and sweet patterns are used to idealize and beautify adult's view of the world, seeming to inspire adults to go back and relive the innocent childhood. Just like rainbow gummies, in his works different flavors also have different colors and everyone can find a flavor s/he likes: savoring simple satisfaction without the need to put up with lengthy preaching and obscure concepts. A jar of rainbow gummies is like a collage of decentralized fragments, and each gummy is a fragment for different experiences. The fragments that each people receive come from the various instants of people's existence of the moment. There's no past or future, only the ever-evolving instants. 

Through the combination of a dazzling visual effect and the spirit to confront the reality, the artist intends to build up an iridescent adult world that seems "lightweight" on the surface but "heavyweight" in nature. And this, in essence, is exactly the real life we live. 

The exhibition is titled after the artist's name, stressing on the prominence of the artist's signature styles. Kang Shixin's world of art, similar to the adult world this is diverse, complex and never either-black-or-white, radiates senses of "brokenness" and "warmth" from within the iridescent colors. Some of his latest sculptural works are also on display at the exhibition. Kang constructs his sculptures with geometric images, following the logic of rational thinking and incorporating Archimedes' principle into the work in a playful way.

The emergence of Zhao Xiaoli in the art world comes quite as a surprise to many and she has gradually turned out to become a key opinion leader of the multi-dimensional and multi-channel arts in the big data era – the Meta-media Art, which can hardly be classified into any existing category. She creates a new category of art that is hard to be surpassed in today's data era. It is a type of original art that belongs to the development process of metaverse art.

Zhao's first solo exhibition INTURSION·BLOSSOM presents a holistic picture of her research and concept of "meta-media art". This exhibition shows the strength and breadth of art communication in the digital age.

Zhao's art creation could be traced back to her childhood experience. At a young age, she spent a lot of time following her grandfather around (a famous veteran traditional Chinese medicine doctor in her hometown) and would draw around while her grandfather was at work. The visual image, the smell of herbs, and her grandfather's strong local accent mixed together. The traditional Chinese medicine consultation was like a ceremony, rendering dramatic effects barely seen in Western medicine practices. In addition, a lot of peonies and hollyhock were planted in the yard. The charm of the peony and the gorgeous hollyhock shaped the world of her childhood. It was not like a black-and-white silent film, but a vivid, three-dimensional and dynamic scene with a variety of sounds, colors and tastes. She has experienced, observed and remembered all kinds of extremely complex elements since she was a child. That also heralds the initial blueprint for her future artistic career.

"Art is about one person creating something and another person loving it." This is what guides Zhao's creative work, which begins with love and belief. Her creation is not limited to the guidance or restriction of Chinese or Western art history, nor does she care about the materials or forms. However, her beauty comes from the very unconsciousness. In the process of recording her creation, her figure alone becomes a signature element of her art.

Zhao's video images and her paintings form the two sides of a whole and complement each other. Some elements or symbols that appear in the painting will also be used as decorative or background materials in her video, which fully expresses her artistic realm. Zhao has undoubtedly become a vanguard of this multi-dimensional art.

The works exhibited in INTRUSION·BLOSSOM are mainly based on Zhao's oil paintings in recent years, which provides a physical supplement to the video works familiar to the public. Zhao is an artist adept in scene-creation and the integration of painting into her daily life. It's exactly her extreme pursuit of aestheticism that has helped to shape her artistic style today. Perhaps the only case in history can be cited is the short-lived aesthetic movement in Europe in the 19th century which held that art creation should be beautiful, putting aesthetic value over everything else. Zhao chooses herself, the most convenient theme, to demonstrate her understanding of aesthetics. In other words, she draws the self she yearns for.

Instead of depicting a scene of a real space, Zhao's painting captures close-up, leaving the background with pure colors, plus some blurring effect or embellishment. Her theme is the subject. Not only do the characters seem to be ageless and fictitious, but even their sense of the times and ethnic characteristics have been diluted. They are like eternal travelers in the time capsule, who have been fixed into beautiful memories. Clouds, the moon, flowers, birds, butterflies, and woods are all elements that arouse her childhood memories and often appear in her works.

Amazingly, Zhao also presents her sculpture series this time, which is a re-creation deriving from her paintings. Her delicate painting imbue the sculpture with strong painterliness, which reminds viewers of the colored clay sculpture in China, and the painted sculpture of Nefertiti, the queen of the ancient Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaton. With the iterative update of technology in the digital age, Zhao has found a channel for sharing with the help of new media materials. As a pioneer of the multi-dimensional, multi-channel art category of "meta-media art" in the digital age, Zhao Xiaoli, who embraces the masses with open arms and open studio, is unstoppable on her road of artistic pursuit and continues to shine her colorfulness surpassing time and space.

The infinite openness embedded in contemporary art makes it possible for every individual to draw on the richness and profundity of the art history from his/her own perspective and form his/her own signature style. To involve cutting-edge scientific technology represents one popular direction for artistic innovation in the contemporary context. And to integrate existing concepts, methods and languages in art history and inspire new verve from within the very fundamental of art represents another. 

Zhang Yu starts his journey in the art world with writing brush, rice paper, water and ink. A profound sense of energy could be perceived from his insights into the custom, the local, the traditional and the historical. The more and deeper he digs into it, the more intoxicated and absorbed he becomes. The process for him to gradually and steadily open up his vision is a process of constant learning and transcending. He tries every means to express the authentic existence of the "self" lying in time, and has constantly been refreshing the patterns and forms in his art. 

According to the artist, the creativity of art lies somewhere beyond art; and art is an escape made by "rebels" of the existing art system. The fundamental value of art lies in how artists express their perception of the authenticity of time and space. In practice, Zhang Yu manages to integrate such instinctive impulse harmoniously with sense and sensibility to make progress in a steady and orderly manner. 

Through techniques such as "finger-printing" and "moss-dotting", Zhang Yu finds a way for his body and physical actions to directly "enter" the work. In Chinese there's a saying that goes like: the nerves of the ten fingers are intricately linked with the heart. Each time by pressing fingerprints onto different materials, the body is given an opportunity to experience a moment of subtle sensitivity, flowing moods and changing thoughts. And in the meantime, the fingers have left some solid imprints in the work. However, when dipped in water with no color, the fingers leave only transparent and uneven finger marks on the soft surfaces such as paper; and on hard materials, the traces they leave are barely visible. When pressing and shaping the soil, the fingers leave their imprints in the soil, shaping the soil in a natural and yet unprecedented way. These works are presented primarily in a still-life manner. However, the concession of so-called form and space gives room for time, the invisible element, to come to the fore. 

During the process to feel as directly and subtly as possible through fingers, forms coming into being are reminiscent of abstract painting, sculpture and performance art emerge. But what Zhang Yu pursues is always the "essence" rather than the "form". As far as he's concerned, these are neither paintings nor sculptures. And neither are they abstract or performative. It represents a kind of "in-between" state of integrated art. 

To Zhang Yu, what matters is not the final form to be presented. Instead, it is the authentic existence of the "self" lying in time and the perception of the authenticity of time and space that matter. It would be difficult to explain the form and state of such authentic existence of the "self" and the perception of the authenticity in specific words, but he tries. In his description, "artistic creation is a process to find oneself, to make connections between work and creation, fiction and expression, objects and human beings (the creator), humanity and spirituality, spirituality and divinity through artistic expression and expressing methods." … "The process of practice is like being immersed in the kind of ritual that is enlightening, devout and shimmering with the light of religion. It seems as if the encounter between man's soul and some kind of mystic moment gives rise to a sense of bitter pleasure, arousing echoes in the depth of mind and raising inquiries into the sacred world…" "Senses of serenity, loftiness, mysteriousness and cohesion are integrated, constantly creating, expanding and inspiring among the space made from ink and water. Taking a distance from the secular world, reflecting upon the inner world and even death, imaging freely and contemplating deeply the cosmic as well as the terrestrial … such a scenario is what we strive for, representing the ultimate quest into life."

Such outlook and methodology on art, in a way, coincide with primitive art, and intersect with the diversity and profundity lying in Beuys. The so-called "work" is, in a sense, a prop for artists of different times to take actions in their own time and space. The physical experience of the body is ephemeral, hard to explain and yet irreplaceable. Only the "props" are to be left, quietly inspiring people to think. So-called "putting oneself in the artist's position", "empathy" and "thinking from a different perspective" from the viewers' side are actually all hypothetical if without firsthand physical experience.

For this exhibition, Zhang Yu presents a work made of soil, in which imprints made by the pressing of fingers are retained. In the meantime, the artist welcomes all the visitors to press the work with their fingers, letting the body to take a moment to feel and reflect.

A race is a grouping of humans based on shared physical genetic qualities into categories generally viewed as distinct by society. The categorization could be based on physical characteristics (i.e. skin color, eye color, eye shape, hair color, hair texture, nose shape, lip thickness, head shape and face shape), genetic traits or self-identification. The concept and categorization of "race" have always been considered controversial and defined differently during different time periods and cultural contexts. 

Studies on race are carried out on at least two levels (domestical and international). As purposes of such studies vary, discussions into the topic are highly complicated. Currently, studies and debates on "race" are interdisciplinary, and so far no universally acknowledged conclusion has been reached concerning what race is, whether it exits, how many races there are and how to define, understand and analyze race. 

According to many evolutionists and sociologists, based on recent research on biology, all the definitions on human races lack stringency and preciseness in terms of scientific classification. Definitions on human races are imprecise, casual, politicalized and established mainly by usage. They change as cultural perspectives shift. In this regard, race should be deemed as a kind of social construction. 

However, some scientists claim that the concept of race is not totally groundless. There is evidence of connections between race and multilocus genetic data. And the reason behind the attempts to abandon the concept of race is often driven by non-scientific factors. For instance, support for terms such as "Caucasoid", "Negro" and "Mongolia" from the scientific community has decreased significantly during the past century. But these terms originally derived from techniques of craniofacial measurement and referred to skull types, and currently are still widely used in forensic anthropology. 

Tatars, who are considered descendants of Rouran, is an umbrella term for different Turkic ethnic groups bearing the name "Tatar". Their origin could be traced back to Mongol Empire when Genghis Khan unified the various steppe tribes. The Tatars in China and Russia all derived from the Tatars living on immense grasslands of the ancient Mongolia. Today the Tatars mainly live in Central Asia, Afghanistan and Europe (including Kazan in Russia, Crimea of Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, Lithuania and Finland). 

In an account Beuys gave of the near-death experience he had, he said he was rescued by a group of nomadic Tatars who tended to his wounds with animal fat and wrapped him in felt. In this story, compared with the modern people who had been disenchanted and left with nothing but void in mind, it seemed that the Tatars managed to retain some mysterious power that mankind had for long possessed, which imbued new inspiration to Beuys' artistic practice. To him, the incident presented itself as an opportunity for him to embrace the fables and signs related to Shaman and theology, re-enchanting the artistic exploration gearing towards infinite openness and possibilities. 

By installing a set of face recognition facility at the gallery space of the museum, Wang Guangyi makes it possible for the viewers to see with their own eyes how much similarity they share with the Tatars. To the viewers, this could be either an unexpected and yet quite solemn chance to "search for their roots", or a casual and fun game, or both. In the maps drawn by the Europeans from the Middle Ages to early 20th century, the nomadic areas of the Tatars are known as Tartaria. In some European literature, "China" sometimes was perceived as a parallel concept to "Tartaria". In the context of Beuys' art, the Tatars enabled the desperate to restart with full vitality after re-enchantment. Tatars, Shaman, theology, politics and art in this case formed an organic chain. According to Beuys, art equals life and art equals human beings: "The liberation of human beings is the goal of art, for me, art is about the freedom of science." To the contemporary people who are almost besieged by AI and big data, what does face recognition mean to them? And what do the descendants of Tatars look like?

The Chinese title "世盖" (shi gai) is what Shi Jinsong names his own world of consciousness. With his Wuhanese accent, it sounds a bit like the word "world" in Chinese and "sky" in English. Moreover, if we swap the two Chinese characters, it forms a mirror image of gai shi (盖世), which means "unparalleled". 

The exhibition features recent works from the artist's Armors series. The various 3D images deriving from the fragments of his consciousness constitute a "world of armors", which to the artist is an intimate moving castle, a portable state under his sovereignty, a set of body-based mind armor and an externalized illustration of spirituality. 

His recent works and the exhibition carry on his long-term investigation into self-consciousness. Also, the appropriation and creative misinterpretation of traditional armor and modern mecha embody a continuation of his practice of cultural reproduction which was firstly perceived in his previous solo exhibition Third Reproduction. 

Armor not only symbolizes a protective covering of the artist's consciousness. The physical properties of armor in turn imbue it with a variety of subtle cultural implications such as isolation, alienation, confrontation, segregation and island-becoming, making it an intuitive projection of public and personal spaces of the post-pandemic era. 

While creating segregation and isolation, armor also stands for an artistic demonstration of philosophical concepts such as "body without organs" and "bare life", casting light on the new and changing definition of body within the contemporary context. If the "armor" in Shi Jinsong's work represents evolution and transformation of body functions, his inventive reorganization of the armors also reflects his pondering upon contemporary bio-politics and body management as well as the impact of new technologies on the once steadfast order systems. 

As a type of special costume, armor could be deemed as a kind of externalization of skin and skeleton. In the exhibition, it could be perceived the artist's attempts to explore the relation between fashion design and architectural aesthetics. When the artist damages, combines and reconstructs the armors, it also alludes to the prominent linguistic traits of the Internet culture – modularization and synthesis. 

Shi Jinsong's "world of armors" casts light on the ideology of self-sovereignty and public space. And in the meantime, the artist also attempts to project his personal consciousness onto the new and broader public space – the digital space. Apart from presentation in physical space, Shi Jinsong further extends the exhibition into the virtual and digital space to reveal his reflection upon concepts such as mirror image and simulacrum. 

The dual presentations of the "world of armors" in both the physical and virtual spaces not only investigate the superposition and paralleling of different spaces, but also inquire into definitions and boundaries of art and commodity under the context of "cultural production". While many people are enthusiastically working on the "commercialization of art", Shi Jinsong, on the other hand, chooses a different path as he intends to achieve "artisticalization of commerce" through transformation and remaking of the symbols of consumer culture and popular culture. 

SKY not only opens a window to peep into the artist's spiritual world as well as the public world in the contemporary context, but it also demonstrates the artist's endeavors to redefine concepts such as reality and virtuality, cultural production and commodity manufacturing, outer form and flesh, technology and order, violence and civilization, cultural reproduction and plurality spirit, and to imbue them with a visible form for the future. 

When ordinary life is on an accelerated pace of transformation under the impact of science and technology, individuals trapped in it have no choice but to feel increasingly helpless. The intensities between free will and orders feed art with the possibilities to ferment. This time, artist Yin Xiuzhen transforms the white-cube gallery space, a place where habitual experience and perception are often met with challenge, into a construction site and invites people to join her to water and mix cement. Together they could create a "highway" block by block. As a contrast to all the hustle and bustle, a simple and mild action like this sends out a warm invitation to people to indulge themselves in hands-on experience, rationality and transcendence…

Highway is a highly visible indicator of the development level of infrastructure. By placing a cement mixer in the gallery space, Yin Xiuzhen gives those who want to make a cement block by themselves an opportunity to operate the mixer, pour the concrete into prefabricated mold with a daily object they'd like to embed in. The process of manual labor is no different from what tens of thousands of construction workers experience on an everyday basis. Probably it is even a bit more "manual": as the drastic development of mechanical automation has already taken the place of manual work in many aspects.

Cement powder has the capacity to become hardened during the process of chemical reaction. Each participating "laborer" chooses a piece of daily object to be embedded in the soft and moist concrete... In a society witnessing increasing changes, encounters among people with different visions, among experiences from the past and the present, would inspire new sparkles in this context.

Daily object is a vehicle containing the unique traces and even smells of its owner. Before the cement hardens, Yin Xiuzhen and her working partners would take the daily objects out and pour butter into the hollow space they leave. The sweet and fragrant butter seems to be in contest with the cement that is getting hardened on the dimension of time. On the one hand, cement, the inorganic matter, blocks the way of butter, the organic matter. But on the other, grease of the butter slowly spreads and sinks into the cement, dissolving the hardness of it… 

When the fragment butter is taking shape in the "mold" created by the daily object and slowly sinks into the cement, a unique sense of aesthetics is radiated from within both visually and olfactorily. In ancient times and even nowadays, butter is often imbued with multiple sacred implications in many parts of the world, and it is widely considered to stand for strength, power, holiness, kindness, happiness, health, purity and quality life. During the slow process of making, the laborers physically touch the substance that has been ruthlessly neglected, disenchanted and de-emotionalized by the drastically rapid development, summon the sentimental feelings and experience embedded in themselves, and witness the changing "reality" in the flow of time. 

Braking is the process of making a vehicle go slower or stop. As the system is on a track of continuous acceleration, every individual who is trapped in it is doomed to feel powerless. Under such circumstance, people would easily feel frustrated. However, the world is also brimming with uncertainties beyond the control of the system. As a result, the constantly accelerating system would experience unexpected braking every now and then, which opens up a door for new possibilities to sneak in. One Piece of Highway is a simple and mild action, inviting people to come to work on the "construction site", and to test the potential of "braking" during the physical touching of construction materials – as the inertia we experience on the highway tends to make it elusive and somewhat distant. 

When describing the incident in Crimea, Beuys said his plane crashed on the Crimean Peninsula during WWII, and it was a Tatar who saved his life. This experience of "rebirth" made a profoundly dramatic impact upon his artistic practice. To Beuys, the Tatars were literally his life-savers. 

I don't think it's necessary to verify the authenticity of the incident Beuys described. Nevertheless, this story was indeed of theological value to Beuys' "self-built persona". The tradition of building persona with theological nature dated back to Vasari's writing of history through a series of biographies, which came to the fore during Renaissance period in the 16th century. 

What does the presence of Tatars mean? According to anthropological studies and categorization, Tatars is an umbrella term for a variety of different ethnic groups bearing the name of "Tatar". But in Beuys' view, this specific Tatar represented a fable-like presence. On the one hand, he was primitive. It was more than natural that there was a distance between the presence of him and modern civilization. And on the other, he was like a "prophet" who was intricately related to Shaman. In a way, such complexities mirror the "overwhelming bemusement" embedded in contemporary art. 

Trying to find descendants of Tatars, do we intend to restore the linkages between Shaman, theology, politics and art? Or is it some kind of game? Essentially speaking, it is a test of how individuals would feel and react when confronting "face recognition", a power structure under the disguise of hi-tech, in the name of art and through the form of game. "Face recognition" in nature epitomizes the generalization of national reason. As individuals, do we have the freedom to choose whether to enter the field of "face recognition" or not? 

A narrow folding bed, on which there were piles of glass fragments, created a wall of mottled shadow through reflection of light. (Light of Folding Bed, 2009).

Chen Wei, the young man who was always reluctant to say "good night", often embarked on a mind traveling in the middle of the night. 

As a prelude to the exhibition, the flickering shadows on the wall derived from the artist's childhood reverie in those nights, from the half-awake-half-asleep moments, and from when the end was about to start. Ideas that popped up and faded away in daytime would spring up vividly one after another in the nights when his eyes were wide open. According to Chen Wei, he was never an early sleeper ever since he was a kid as dark nights gave him an alternative reality of open time. Light of Folding Bed was created after the artist moved to Beijing (2018) from Hangzhou. The gap period right after the relocation brought him back to the time when young Chen Wei lay on a folding bed, indulging in flights of fancy. The somewhat messy visual fragments embedded in his memory gradually gave form to a world familiar only to him. Chen Wei likes to do the setting up in his studio to make record of the grotesquely gaudy world under the backdrop of night. Sharing some similarities with daytime, but when night falls, it goes beyond the hustle and bustle of daytime.

Leaving the hustle and bustle behind on the one hand, it's hard to keep away from the gloomy sense of emptiness on the other. A figure in a leather coat (Untitled (Leather), 2013), whose face was hidden in the shadow, stood in the partial brightness and partial darkness, quietly and seclusively. In the past few years, blurring and even erasing the image of the figure emerged as a major approach of the artist to delineate "contemporary people who were absent"[1]. Window at the other end of the room functioned as a bridge to connect the endless brilliance and dynamic beats of the city outside (New Buildings, 2016). Flying over the window, the artist who was on his way to Beijing saw the alternative reality of the city, which was reflected through foggy night and overloaded with a sense of roughness that could not be filtered out by the curtain of night of the capital city. 

Chen Wei initiated New City project in 2013 and New Buildings was a work from that series. Another project initiated around the same period was Club, a probe into the night life of contemporary youngsters. From then on, the artist gradually turned his camera to the people and environment surrounding him. In the past eight years, following the contrasts between "outdoor/indoor", "public/underground", "composure/fascination", his investigation and exploration under the theme of "city" developed alternately within the framework of the two projects.

Driven by modernization, metabolism of cities was at an unprecedentedly dramatic pace, both vertically in height and horizontally in width. While the physical space was experiencing rapid ebbs and flows, the artist shifted his attention to the cracks between visions and realities. In this sense, the New City project could be seen as a response to these cracks: metal wall panels often used at construction sites were torn apart, lying on the sidewalk and making a sparkling scene (Iron Sheet, 2015); glass fragments were scattered around in a pit full of water, reflecting the glow of sunset as well as the brilliance of urban lights (Glass Lake, 2016); and from a piece of damaged tile on the sidewalk there emerged a glaring spot of golden color (Fresh Dewdrop, 2017)… Debris left behind by modernization projects that would never be completed as planned were updated even before we had chance to archive them in our memory. As memory faded away, what lingered around was mixed emotions, or say, a sense of "déjà disparu" [2].

Chen Wei's practice could be described as to constantly capture, revisit, highlight and remake the ephemeral "urban scenes". Coins series marked an early attempt made by the artist. The first work of this series was produced in 2011, prior to the launch of the New City project. Wishing pool was something that had once been so popular. Glistering coins at the bottom of the pool made an intriguing contrast with the unknown sculptures in often the middle of the fountain. Through Chen Wei's camera, the pools were deprived of ideological implications and pointed at unfulfilled wishes and overspent futures lurking within the fragmented landscape in Chinese cities. The wishing pool that was left at the corner of a park now became a footnote of the New City project. The artist managed to explore into the cracks of the urban space through a soft filter of light, which also constituted a visual metaphor for how youngsters saw the world. The glistering "coins" in the darkness and the glorious "new city" under the backdrop of ruins generated a kind of "tragic" beauty between the old and the new, the new and the newer, through the language of light.

The flickering light came from the brilliantly lit light that had been refurbished and polished (Brilliantly Lit Light #0907, 2019), and penetrated the makeshift tracery made of plastic bags (Wonderful/Tracery, 2017/2021). The word "Wonderful" in an upside-down matter could be discerned on the plastic bag. After several studio relocations in Beijing, the artist once again made a flew over the window and headed to his next destination. 

Figures in real life constantly "made exits", while figures in the work, who had been previously concealed, were now officially kicked out. Television receivers grew into a tree along with the telegraph pole, giving out a kind of metallic luster (Tree, 2016). The users, who once lived in those temporary sheds, had left a long time ago. A station under the light became home to scattered suitcases and packing boxes (New Station, 2020). Cozy as it seemed to be, station board with no words and the complete absence of man imbued it with a sense of weirdness. Station, a place where partings were made, was once a subject matter in the artist's practice. Before he moved to Beijing, Chen Wei presented a pair of photographs entitled Anonymous Station (2007), which featured the days and nights at an abandoned circular station. For this work, he resorted to large-scale real scene construction for the first time. The station once crammed with passengers and stuff was now deprived of any sign of man. Only the stuff was left on the scene to "perform" – in this way, station once again embraced its very natural attribute, "to welcome the coming and speed the parting", under Chen Wei's camera. The sense of sadness triggered by the action of "making exits" was diluted by the endless circle between "coming and leaving" at the station. Under the dazzling light of the neon sign "24 Hours" in Glass/24 Hours (2021), city under nightfall continued its metabolism. 

A young man wearing a copycat peaked cap starred down at a message popping up on his cellphone (Mike, 2016) – "Where are you going tonight?"

Several malfunctioning LED panels were erected, like buildings commonly seen in the urban space, repeatedly playing the same question (Trouble (Where are you going tonight), 2018). Images and texted specially programmed by the artist constituted a bizarrely abstract landscape of light and shadow. Information full of mistakes and omissions were shown on the screens in an endless loop. Different from those dramatic slogans hovering above the cities in nighttime, "Where are you going tonight" instead of triggering any instant sense of joy led people into the realm of uncertainties. Under the accompaniment of the casual greeting, the artist made another flew over the window. Casual as it was, when reading the message on their cell phones, those who hurried on with their journey in the night took a silent moment to ponder.

Notes:

[1] See Chen Wei's description of Untitled (Leather). 

[2] The notion of "déjà disparu" was proposed by Ackbar Abbas in The New Hong Kong Cinema and the 'Déjà Disparu', which was published on Discourse in 1994 (Spring 1994, Vol. 16, No. 3). The article was also included in Hong Kong: Culture and the Politics of Disappearance (1997). According to Abbas, "déjà disparu" should be defined as "the feeling that what is new and unique about the situation is always already gone, and we are left holding a handful of clichés, or a cluster of memories of what has never been". See Ackbar Abbas. Hong Kong: Culture and the Politics of Disappearance. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1997, p.25.

In his description of the New City project, Chen Wei resorted to this notion. 

Under the shadow of the virus, fear for death lurks at the bottom of our heart more than ever. Consequences incurred thereby such as self-protection, isolation, quarantine and test arouse complicated feelings among different people. Due to the pandemic, Zhao Bandi had to stay abroad in the spring and summer of 2020. Arriving in China at the end of June and after a 14-day quarantine at a hotel in Shanghai, he finally made his way home in Beijing. 

Witnessing the spread of the pandemic and the escalating conflicts among different nations, and experiencing the sense of loneliness, isolation and helplessness first-handedly, Zhao Bandi came to the conclusion that art is a way to sympathize and emancipate. 

As a result, taking Me & Beuys at HOW as an opportunity, Zhao Bandi presents his version of Noah's Ark – Zhao Bandi's Hut.

A "Hut" in a Cast-Away Situation

At the outbreak of the pandemic, people actively or passively isolate themselves to protect them from each other, which in a way makes life into a Cast-Away situation. Zhao Bandi's hut consists of bamboo shack, mask hammock, and bamboos and bamboo leaves scattered around. Inside the hut, traces of human civilization and imprints of panda, one of the most endangered animals, could both be perceived. As we all know, the latter is a signature in Zhao's practice as well as his pre-life memory. 

Beuys's Grease and Felt of v.s. Zhao Bandi's Hut

Zhao Bandi has been known for his wittily surprising ways to challenge the rules and ridicule the prejudice since early 1990s. However, as a matter of fact the seemingly mischievous intrusions run parallel with the reverence he harbors for the classical spirit – after all, they are both about love and hope. And his favorite artist, Joseph Beuys, is exactly an example who managed to connect the two together. 

Being a gunner in the German Air Force during WWII, Beuys's plane crashed on the Crimean Front. He was rescued by the Tatar tribesmen, who had wrapped him with animal fat and felt. Consequently, as prominent symbols of life and redemption, pain and cure, grease and felt constantly appeared in his later artistic practice. 

While the pandemic makes people all the more isolated and longing for shelter, Zhao Bandi's hut fits exactly such a goal. Aesthetically speaking, he sets up a cradle, a refuge, a confessional in the surreal sense for the curing and redemption of the soul. People who are very much depressed and anxious under the threat of the pandemic are just like those who were in the face of the world-engulfing flood. They are welcomed to come to the hut, to embark on the Noah's Art of the soul and escape this fallen world within an aesthetic ambience. 

Painting and Several Parties

In recent years, Zhao Bandi has organized a series of parties at spaces such as the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, and UCCA Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing, which has earned him the reputation as the "King of Party". Also, he has passionately picked up his painting brushes again. During the time he had to stay abroad, few people wanted to spend much time outside. But Zhao Bandi sometimes went out to the street, setting up his easel and delineating the verves under the equatorial sunshine in the form of oil on canvas. 

He's given explanations of his dualities: In the past two or three years when I had been keen on creating hilarious art parties one after another, the other me chose to go back to studio and spent time quietly in front of the canvas. There was a reason for that: after years of dealing with the world, I gradually felt frustrated at the so-called "truth" and became more concerned about "surface". Painting, as an old lover of mine, came back to me at this point with renewed looks. 

Probably it is because the truth is too cruel that Zhao Bandi chooses to build a Utopia of his own.

In this newly-built hut, paintings he created during the pandemic are put on display. Also in this hut, he'd receive friends, which leads to the series of hilarious parties. 

Is Zhao Bandi's Escape Plan a Panacea to Rescue All Beings? 

Experience during the past six months has greatly stimulated his nerves and perception, and the sense of stimulation is still as vivid as yesterday. Once Zhao Bandi raised a question, in a somewhat self-mocking manner: In the face of the global pandemic and an overwhelmingly cruel world, is it unethical for me to still stick to a fine sense of beauty? 

 Rather than self-question, it is more like the artist's confession of his choice of an aesthetic escape when his perception of the world is deepened. 

 Zhao Bandi's hut will create a new dimension, within which the boundary between reality and art becomes blurred. To be more specific, within this dimension, the reality that is thin and rigid is to be imbued with the energy of aesthetics, the ordinary is transformed into the extraordinary, and severe heaviness is melted into mellow lightness… 

 In a time when the whole world descends into a post-pandemic scenario and when conflicts and crises have reached an unprecedented level, Zhao Bandi presents to the world his version of escape plan!

 Does Zhao Bandi's ark of art also work for us?

The concepts in Yang Zhenzhong's works are intricately layered and thought-provoking. The constant advancement of the conceptual aspects drives the development of the work's highly experimental selection of material, style, and execution. The stream of thought invoked by curiosity and critical awareness transforms with the shift in his attention to a given problematic area that he is concerned with, it is during this process that he stretches out his vitality.

Because of his constantly shifting focus, apart from mirrors and metals bars, there are few recurring materials in his work. Instead, Yang Zhenzhong constantly refreshes our perceptions and expressions of the basic conditions of contemporary existence that deal with the tension between truth/illusion, private/public in the age of the spectacle.

In his 2009 work Black Board, he began using mirrors and bars to show viewers their own mirrored image seen through the bars of the apparently open space, rendering members of the audience confused and not knowing whether they were inside or outside the cage. In 2013, mirrors and bars were placed on several of the walls, causing the mirrored images to converge and overlap, creating multiple images of people "inside and outside the cages" adding to the viewer's disorientation. In 2017, Fence a spatial installation in Beijing's Arrow Factory, consisted of a "two-sided mirror" attached to an iron grille on the wall facing the street and in the wall was a camera. When people who are usually in hurry saw the mirror on the wall, they instinctively paused to look at themselves in the mirror, completely unaware that there was a camera situated behind the two-way mirror.

In the work "Cube" produced for this exhibition at HOW Art Museum, Yang Zhenzhong uses mirrors and red fire hydrant pipes to form a large cube. On the ground, four mirrored walls conceal mysteries, while the walls of the exhibition hall have their own settings. Once the audience intervenes into the set of visual relations he has established, they will generate mirrored and filmed images, which will then reflect and overlap on each other generating a constant flow of new information and meaning....

In the world of the spectacle, illusion is in a constant state of metamorphosis, false appearances are more enticing and charming than the truth, and so truth is "ashamed of itself" and forced to retreat. People immersed in screens and reflections have long been unable to find the border between truth and illusion. Cameras are everywhere, personal information is collected and analyzed by machines day and night, and there is no way to  secure one's own personal privacy. At times we even give up our privacy willingly… This installation by Yang Zhenzhong adds spectacle to the society of the spectacle, tempting people to look in the mirror in a world of mirrored images, doubling down on being open in an era of openness, inviting the viewer to grow in their own experience of looking in the mirror.

At the moment it seems there's nothing better to do than "falling into a trance".

"Speed is a form of ecstasy." In Slowness, a motorcyclist who is eager to overtake "is caught in a fragment of time cut off from both the past and the future; he is wrenched from the continuity of time; he is ousted time; in other words, he is in a state of ecstasy…"[1]

In the state of "trance" (or "ecstasy"[2]), man gains access to experiencing two different states of consciousness at the same time: the absorption in the oblivion of self-existence and the "dissociation" [3] of escaping from the now and here. The seemingly ambiguity bestows "trance" the freedom to wander between "in" and "out", a privilege to get around and even resist linear time. 

To Jin Shan and Zhao Yang, the turbulent 2020 marked a timing for them to "fall into a trance". Jin Shan moved his studio to a place closer to downtown Shanghai in the end of summer. And Zhao Yang made an even longer-distance move after the Spring Festival – he moved from Beijing back to Hangzhou, the place he left over a decade ago. 

The dual exhibition at HOW Art Museum Shanghai features a spontaneous state of "trance" the two artists presented during a time of changes. Works on show are mostly recent works by Jin Shan and Zhao Yang and encompass a mix of media including painting, sculpture and installation. Within the non-linear intersections developed by time-space construction and self-expression, the two artists resorted to different (images of) bodies in the attempt to explore for a unique spiritual path of cultural modeling and new possibilities to envisage the uncertain.  

The images of bodies imbued Jin Shan's sculpture with all the possibilities. Bodies that had been distorted, crushed, exploded and penetrated were frozen in the instant of a "trance", demonstrating eternal potential momentum and growing in an understatedly intricate scenario. The emergence of "body" as an element in Jin Shan's art could be traced back to Desperate Pee (2007), a life-size silicone sculpture presented at a group exhibition of the 52nd Venice Biennale, and remained a key element in his artistic practice ever since. During the process, he gradually drifted away from using human figures like himself as a model to allude to sensitive social issues (i.e.: It Came from the Sky!, 2011). Instead, he started to resort to the almost perfect figures of the classical sculptures from ancient Greece to probe into the general conditions faced by human beings. Choosing the highly flexible industrial plastics as a major material, Jin Shan managed to bring the fluidity and flexibility of the material into life in his artworks. The plastics poured into the moulds were sometimes mixed with other materials (i.e. metal, stone and wood) and shaped in whatever manner the artist preferred before it cooled down and stiffened. The process of reshaping embodied both the artist's spontaneous reactions to his perceptions of the materials and his intentional retention of the traces of imperfection left by the stretching of the plastics. 

Scatter (2020), a recent work by Jin Shan, was a re-creation based on the Roman copy of Polykleitos' Doryphoros (Spear-Bearer). The body with a broken-off arm was represented in a simplified version by the artist – a body that fell apart as if it was torn in between the two conflicting forces of constraining and liberating. The broken contour appeared distorted and tilted, clawing back the torso and head of the statue that were about to slip away. Compared with Nowhere (2015), a previous work of his based on the same original, the sense of struggling emitted from the new work became even stronger and more distinct. Delicate and yet fierce, rough and yet fragile described the intuitive feelings audience would gain from the grotesque objects that were about to be either born or destroyed in the creation of Jin Shan.

If we look further back, Inverted (2015) and Untitled (2018), two works which were also created on the basis of an ancient sculpture, could be seen as independent and yet comparable to each other. The body featured in Inverted was turned completely inside out. The negative space of the work was exposed to the maximum by the fragmented body with a drooping head. On the contrary, Untitled demonstrated a spontaneous out-of-body experience – and what was left behind the runaway soul was a motionless torso. In Jin Shan's view, the two works could be seen as "yin" and "yang": conflicting as they were, they were harmoniously integrated at the core. To a large extent, it helped dissolve the uneasiness incurred by fierce struggling and breakage inherent to the implosive universe created by the artist. 

Compared with the sharp and outwardly torn-apart world in Jin Shan's work, images presented by Zhao Yang show a sense of inward collapse. As a trained painter, Zhao Yang's practice on canvas tends to conceal ingenuity beneath the seemingly plainness and reveal a sense of loop from "nothingness" to "somethingness" and then back to "nothingness".[4] During the process of painting, Zhao Yang attempted to conceal, shied and even destroy the narratives constructed in the drafts, creating a sense of paradox wandering between reality and dream. The beauty of Zhao Yang's work lied in the deviations and difference between the actual work and the initial ideas. Lines and traces sliding on the canvas were constantly wiped and smeared by the artist, imbuing ambiguity and vagueness into the previously recognizable objects and familiar scenarios and making them further integrated during the constant re-painting. Thanks to that the imagery that was once confined to classical visual ideographical system gradually ground its way out of the figural system, entering a state described by Zhao Yang as "a lonely babbler or semi-lingual talker", which in essence was a state of "trance" that could hardly be confined or captured. The journey to clear away the mist and search for the destination within artwork extended along with the flow of babbling. 

Sometimes it takes Zhao Yang a couple of years to complete a piece of work. Only Similarity Is Ours (2009-2013), an oil on printed canvas, was one of those works and was intricately related with the decision for Zhao Yang to become a professional artist. In 2010, after fifteen years working as an editor in Hangzhou, he quitted. It was more an urge to embrace the rough reality, potential hindrance and the capital city of the country than a merely premeditated getaway. The daily confrontation with difficulties was embodied in his artistic practice. While working on Only Similarity Is Ours, Zhao Yang ingeniously chose to print the image onto the canvas in advance. It could become a kind of obstruction, in a sense. And the process of using acrylic to cover and re-paint was like "to come round the stumbling block and open up a strange space".[5] The somewhat chaotic world of images was a way for the artist to connect with the outside world, and he invited the audience to enter into his spiritual world to share the amazement and turmoil he felt. The plaster heads (of human figures and animals) scattered in the work appeared in pair with facial profiles, demonstrating a kind of "hybrid" – the image of monsters in the artist's mind as a result of the inspirations gained from mythologies and fables both from the east and the west. In 2013, Zhao Yang wrote down "only similarity is ours" at the bottom right corner of the painting as a mark for the completion of the work. 

His latest work Cepheus (2019-2020) derived from Only Similarity Is Ours. Behind the bodies trapped in nebula, the head statue in pairs and the geometrical figures, time and space were folded and collaged within the immense universe. In the past two years, Zhao Yang was highly interested in the topics of hidden stars. And in the meantime, the sense of desolation still hovered as the background of his work. Since the emergence of factory-like architectures in his work in 2008, desolate "ruins" constantly appeared in Zhao Yang's art in a solemn and yet flexible manner. The utopia of industrial civilization (Ubiquitous, 2009), the natural wasteland in the forest of memory (Hunting Series, 2014-) and the overwhelming infinity hovering on top of human beings (Star Image Series, 2019- ) were all examples of that. Zhao Yang's art had been disengaged from the hustle and bustle of the outside world. Pure velocity was no longer visible, replaced by temporary stagnation and disoriented wandering; in other words, a state of leisurely "trance". 

Anthropoid (2020), Striker (2020) and UFO (2020), three pieces that consisted a painting triptych of Zhao Yang, were interconnected like montage in the movie and in the meantime went on with their own paths. In the name of Volcano (2019) by Jin Shan, the lit candle on the purplish black palm shed light till the very end of its life, leaving imprints on the raised knuckles and the torso that was confined by chains and sinking in Island (2020)…

The smoke left by the candlelight that died out, like a long pause in Zhao Yang's conversation, gives a moment for a breath. It is also like the glow of the setting sun reflected through the windows of Jin Shan's studio. 

Fall into a trance, for once.

Notes:

[1] Milan Kundera, Slowness, translated by Ma Zhencheng, Shanghai Translation Publishing House, 2003, pp. 1-2

[2] Author's note: In social anthropology, "ecstasy" and "trance" are often used as synonyms; however, "trance" is used throughout. Gilbert Rouget. Music and Trance: A Theory of the Relations Between Music and Possession, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985. pp. 4-5

[3] Author's note: According to Vincent Crapanzano, an American anthropologist, "trance shall be loosely defined as a complete or partial dissociation, characterized by changes in such functions as identity, memory, the sensory modalities, and thought. It may involve the loss of voluntary control over movement, and may be accompanied by hallucinations and visions which are often forgotten."  Vincent Crapanzano. The Hamadsha: A Study in Moroccan Ethnopsychiatry, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973. p.195

[4] Author's note: Zhao Yang used to word "collapse" to describe his paintings on many occasions and concluded the process of his practice as a circle from "nothingness" to "somethingness" and then back to "nothingness". In other words, through a process from construction to disassembly he endeavored to enter a state of ambiguity that was beyond words.

[5] Author's note: The quote is from Zhao Yang's description of Only Similarity Belongs to Us.

The Detective Project-To Chase One's Tail Training, implemented by Zhou Xiaohu in August of 2008 is a premeditated monitoring test. After signing separate contracts and paying the required fees, 10 private investigators from 10 different private detective firms got busy playing the game designed by their employer, Zhou Xiaohu. Each of the investigators immediately began the serious investigative work by following the person appointed by his or her employer without ever knowing that he or she is being investigated and followed at the same time. Only their employers, who are in receiving a steady stream of reports and looking down on them from above, know that this is a loop of information that feeds on itself: everyone is snooping and collecting information about someone, yet everyone is also being snooped on and having their information collected.

Detective Project-To Chase One's Tail Training was conducted in crowded shopping malls and subway stations. Ten busy investigators were paid according to their investigative abilities according to the contract they signed before the investigation. After aesthetic transformation, the artist Zhou Xiaohu posited the process of the entire operation into the museum, a space for viewing and reflection, which raises a series of questions: Which channels and methods can personal information be obtained without having been publicly disclosed? What is the client's reaction when he finds that he is being investigated and followed by another private detective company? What will happen when the information of the parties is published without their knowledge? "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" When the investigator is also the respondent, and when the investigator finds they are also being investigated, and everyone becomes aware that they are both the investigator and the respondent, what subtle changes will happen to the questions asked?

As circumstances change with the passage of time, the technology implemented in Detective Project-To Chase One's Tail Training has already become outdated, but the basic logic of the situation and the issues addressed all relevant to contemporary life and continue to on in the form of video surveillance, facial recognition, big data, 5G, and artificial intelligence. Of course, it can also be that these prickly topics have been smoothed out by new life experiences…