"Human, animal, and plant bodies with alien features narrate the processes of violence and its ambiguities. At the Venetian branch of Capsule Shanghai, the first solo exhibition in Italy of one of the most promising Chinese artists of the moment."
The imagination of Liao Wen (Chengdu, 1994; lives and works in Hong Kong) is unsettling and vibrant. I realized this when I first saw her works in the group exhibition that Capsule Shanghai gallery held at the Cassina Projects space in Milan in 2023. This impression was confirmed by another group exhibition, this time at the Venetian branch of the same Capsule Shanghai, just a year later. And it becomes even clearer to me in her solo exhibition, the first in Italy, held at this very location. Behind each of these initiatives is the curation of Manuela Lietti, who, along with the gallery, deserves recognition for bringing outstanding examples of contemporary Chinese art to our cities.
At the same time as Liao Wen’s exhibition, Capsule’s Venetian space is also hosting exhibitions by German artist Mevlana Lipp (Cologne, 1989), who explores the intersections between painting and sculpture, and Italian artist Alessio de Girolamo (Sanremo, 1980), who presents a project sampling the sounds of nature and the city, recreating preselected compositions and integrating them with various real-time video footage of the process.
Liao Wen's Exhibition in Venice
The sculptures by Liao Wen presented by Capsule are proof that one can speak of violence without sacrificing elegance and refinement. There is violence in the large sculpture that greets visitors on the main floor—a skeleton of a sea creature resembling a whale, suspended in mid-air, with its vertebrae numbered as if in a natural history museum. From animal to museum specimen, from living being to object of study and wonder, the whale here symbolizes human appropriation of more-than-human bodies. This dynamic is emphasized by the performance that activates the sculpture (shown in an accompanying video): the metaphorical death of the animal is ritualized, with its innards and heart (represented by fabric strips and a drum, respectively) removed for analysis.
The sculptures by Liao Wen presented by Capsule are proof that one can speak of violence without sacrificing elegance and refinement. There is violence in the large sculpture that greets visitors on the main floor—a skeleton of a sea creature resembling a whale, suspended in mid-air, with its vertebrae numbered as if in a natural history museum. From animal to museum specimen, from living being to object of study and wonder, the whale here symbolizes human appropriation of more-than-human bodies. This dynamic is emphasized by the performance that activates the sculpture (shown in an accompanying video): the metaphorical death of the animal is ritualized, with its innards and heart (represented by fabric strips and a drum, respectively) removed for analysis.
Certainly more explicit, but no less captivating, is the violence depicted in the video Down the Eye of Polyphemos: the images flow from the Cyclops’ pupil (perhaps just pierced by Nobody, and thus fully aware of the violence), and we plunge into it like Alice down the rabbit hole. But the wonders we find at the bottom are far from those described by Lewis Carroll; instead, it is a series of scenes showing the penetration and violation of human, animal, and plant bodies.
The Ambivalent Violence in Liao Wen's Works
The violence that the Chinese artist stages is one that reveals its full ambiguity: it is both cultural and natural. Entering the next room, Liao Wen explains to me, "I had been wanting to create a sculptural emsemble for some time, but it was important to me that the bodies interact, that they intertwine." In the sculpture Tears of the Succubus, the two protagonists are not only entwined but also embody the primal dualism of eros and thanatos. The outcome of the mating of praying mantises is well known, and Liao Wen meticulously directs the climactic scene: the female holds the male with her abdomen while attacking his throat with her mandibles, unable to stop. Here, natural violence is instinct— a prison for the female just as much as for the male. Liao Wen seems to tell us that love (and any relationship) always contains a portion of aggression, of domination over oneself or the other. Tears of the Succubus is probably the most gruesome work in the exhibition, yet it is balanced by a delicate and surprising detail: seeds sprouting from the back of the female. The cannibalistic and violent act of the mantis becomes an existential paradigm of the coexistence of life and death, explaining the title of the entire exhibition: By devouring it, I learn about the world.
Liao Wen: Art is the Process
When the meaning of a work emerges not only from its perceptual qualities but also from its creative process and the medium used, it's always a good sign. It signals the artist's awareness of what they are doing and, above all, how they are doing it. "Most of my works are sculpted in wood," Liao Wen explains to me. "I could achieve similar results with other techniques (for example, casting with molds), but it would curtail an important, manual, and physical part of the process." There is violence in sculpting too: the wood, once part of a living being, becomes a sacrificial body, a material to be carved, broken, smoothed, confronted, and killed once again. "This helps me reflect on my own violent and negative side," the artist says. Thus, the artistic process (at least as much as the final result) becomes a moment of reflection not only on the execution of the works but also on their meaning—on what they communicate and on who, through them, becomes the storyteller.
Text By Alberto Villa
[Translated from the original in Italian, link to the original text below]
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