2016.11.05 - 2016.12.18
Opening: 2016.11.05 16:30
Curator: Wang Paopao
Artists: Feng Chen, He Shan, Liu Yue, Song Jianshu, Wu Di, Yang Junling
Space Local is a common 3 bedroom apartment, and the 6 artists participating in this group exhibition are actually 2 women and 4 men. However, choosing the name "1 Apartment for 2 Women 4 Men" is not only based on such an apparent fact, but also because we believe that this concise statement, which lists and juxtaposes the spatial structure, numbers and genders, although might be seemingly expressionless, it will help us to confirm and emphasize that, the very thing that determines our cognition and imagination is always an undefined relationship in a specific space. And only an unresolved, fantasizing name will be sufficient to insure this open relationship.
This physical attribute (as an apartment) of Space Local also leads us to believe that there needs to be an exhibition that differs from those in common spaces, which should be more personal, more intimate and more relevant to the human body. Therefore, we hope that this space can also be regarded as human, and present human: in this exhibition, the natural space of human, his thinking or logical space, living space, mental space and viewing space for others, should be open and available to cycle around. 6 artists carried out various discussions in their own ways from different perspectives, and ultimately presented as a group of complex harmony of human.
With the video installation of artist Yang Junling placed at the entrance as the primer, in this 3 bedroom apartment, what we attempt to start is a "human" drama.
In the living room, according to the appearances, names, and degrees of abstraction within the works, respectively, we arranged Liu Yue's photography Noisy point; Song Jianshu's geometric sculpture named Origin; He Shan's original plant landscape Greenhouse. We intend to use the sky, the five elements and the metaphor of life accordingly, to make the invention and abuse of cognitive system and its tools, the philosophical and mental construction of the origin of matter, and eternity of time appear for everything present in the space, including the background of this exhibition.
And in the 3 bedrooms, the spaces we enter and leave in some fictional or cinematic push-in/pull-out shots, are the individual scenes of the other 3 artists. These scenes are also a morphological sample, or a slice, of a "real person". Wu Di is trying to create with paintings and installations a lone individual that attempts to understand rules of the world, and dissects his internal beliefs, by resetting and shifting the ready-mades. Yang Junling intends to eventualize his body experience of being a father for the first time. Feng Chen's scene is the 3 videos related to the other and his viewing. Through repeated inquiries, redesigns and eventual overcoming of monocular vision, he tries hard to approach the so-called "correct statement" of the visible world, but always wears a suspicious face.
The artists and works presented in the exhibition almost cover most of the known types of art, but it is obvious that they are more inclined to use these works to refute such categorizations and labels in certain ways.
In this limited space, this 3 bedroom apartment, being silent and indescribable for them is just right. They do not appear in any relationship that can be plainly defined. And that is exactly what art has always done to us, as it makes things people usually take for granted become truly suspicious.
