Introduction
Star Gallery will present“The Black Dwarf:Part II”, recent works by Fan Xi, Liu Fujie and Navchaa on 25 October 2014.
“Building a unique relationship between the artwork and the space it inhabits” – was a critical element for the exhibition “The Black Dwarf: Part I”, its use of the exhibition space could even be considered as “destructive”, which provided a unique yet powerful experience for the last exhibition of Star Gallery in 798 Art District. In that exhibition, Fan Xi’s photographs departed from the wall, and were scattered throughout the space to allow the viewers to inhabit her “forest of images”, by which, the artist rendered a completely new phenomenon. In “The Black Dwarf: Part II”, her portraiture quietly returned to the wall to allow these images to “tell their own stories”. In other words, in an open space where the viewers come face to face with the privacy of the subject, the space of reality compresses one’s psychological space to nearly zero. Fan Xi’s “Up Front” of female portraits is a series she began from 2011 until now. The artist “communicates” with the subjects whom she’s not familiar with through the camera. The complex emotions are concealed within the simple photographs and the calm bodies of her subjects that carry poignant concerns and profound rhetoric. In a “sympathetic” atmosphere the photographer and her subjects becomes one at the moment when the shutter was pressed, ultimately, almost every photograph becomes Fan Xi’s own self-portrait. With this approach, Fan Xi realizes an exchange of identities between herself and them – she is them, and they are her.
Liu Fujie’s new work attempts to explore the “viewing of sculpture” in order to ponder on the sensible differences between virtual space and actual space. Through this comparison, the artist hopes to study the “vacuous” area between the “photograph” of a sculpture and the “actual object” – when we are looking at the photograph of a sculpture, what are we actually looking at? Is it the space and volume the sculpture embodies, or is it the intriguing light and colour tone highlight the two-dimensional space? Or both? At that moment, one’s senses of a sculpture falls into the “trap” of the intrinsic nature of photography, where space, volume even temperature are converted to “black, white and grey” of the two-dimensional, while the eye forces the brain to use these information to restore its actual three-dimensional space, yet the body resists. Liu Fujie’s work uses fibre materials to restore the classic “compositions” in the history of sculpture. However, the process of restoration was realized through her observation of Michelangelo’s works in a catalogue. Through the process of “reversing” from the two-dimensional to three-dimensional, Liu Fujie made the contradiction embedded in the “viewing of sculpture” more acute, it becomes a conflict for the viewer, as it is for the artist.
Navchaa’s senses for sculpture largely relies on being in situ, while emphasizing on the sense of existence of the sculpture in actual space that has certain specifically correlated relationship. For her, these specifically correlated relationships are unlike the virtual and differential space in the two-dimensional painting, that seems incredibly real and irreplaceable, while relying on all senses of the body as the basis of experience. In “The Black Dwarf: Part II”, her new sculpture/installation “Object No. 3”, turns the most common object (rope) into something unusual. “Time” is a critical factor in this work, the overlapping and intertwined ropes are in constant state of motion and change, where still sculpture disappears, what is left are the numerous fragments one stares into. Should time not be understood as a linear existence, this sculpture in motion would project a sense of eternity, where every dimension of time, each moment can be framed as an eternity. “To a sensible body, every detail in this world is out of control, even our visual capacity may not capture everything, like the motions of these ropes.”
“Building a unique relationship between the artwork and the space it inhabits” – was a critical element for the exhibition “The Black Dwarf: Part I”, its use of the exhibition space could even be considered as “destructive”, which provided a unique yet powerful experience for the last exhibition of Star Gallery in 798 Art District. In that exhibition, Fan Xi’s photographs departed from the wall, and were scattered throughout the space to allow the viewers to inhabit her “forest of images”, by which, the artist rendered a completely new phenomenon. In “The Black Dwarf: Part II”, her portraiture quietly returned to the wall to allow these images to “tell their own stories”. In other words, in an open space where the viewers come face to face with the privacy of the subject, the space of reality compresses one’s psychological space to nearly zero. Fan Xi’s “Up Front” of female portraits is a series she began from 2011 until now. The artist “communicates” with the subjects whom she’s not familiar with through the camera. The complex emotions are concealed within the simple photographs and the calm bodies of her subjects that carry poignant concerns and profound rhetoric. In a “sympathetic” atmosphere the photographer and her subjects becomes one at the moment when the shutter was pressed, ultimately, almost every photograph becomes Fan Xi’s own self-portrait. With this approach, Fan Xi realizes an exchange of identities between herself and them – she is them, and they are her.
Liu Fujie’s new work attempts to explore the “viewing of sculpture” in order to ponder on the sensible differences between virtual space and actual space. Through this comparison, the artist hopes to study the “vacuous” area between the “photograph” of a sculpture and the “actual object” – when we are looking at the photograph of a sculpture, what are we actually looking at? Is it the space and volume the sculpture embodies, or is it the intriguing light and colour tone highlight the two-dimensional space? Or both? At that moment, one’s senses of a sculpture falls into the “trap” of the intrinsic nature of photography, where space, volume even temperature are converted to “black, white and grey” of the two-dimensional, while the eye forces the brain to use these information to restore its actual three-dimensional space, yet the body resists. Liu Fujie’s work uses fibre materials to restore the classic “compositions” in the history of sculpture. However, the process of restoration was realized through her observation of Michelangelo’s works in a catalogue. Through the process of “reversing” from the two-dimensional to three-dimensional, Liu Fujie made the contradiction embedded in the “viewing of sculpture” more acute, it becomes a conflict for the viewer, as it is for the artist.
Navchaa’s senses for sculpture largely relies on being in situ, while emphasizing on the sense of existence of the sculpture in actual space that has certain specifically correlated relationship. For her, these specifically correlated relationships are unlike the virtual and differential space in the two-dimensional painting, that seems incredibly real and irreplaceable, while relying on all senses of the body as the basis of experience. In “The Black Dwarf: Part II”, her new sculpture/installation “Object No. 3”, turns the most common object (rope) into something unusual. “Time” is a critical factor in this work, the overlapping and intertwined ropes are in constant state of motion and change, where still sculpture disappears, what is left are the numerous fragments one stares into. Should time not be understood as a linear existence, this sculpture in motion would project a sense of eternity, where every dimension of time, each moment can be framed as an eternity. “To a sensible body, every detail in this world is out of control, even our visual capacity may not capture everything, like the motions of these ropes.”
