Introduction
Star Gallery is pleased to present Wang Yifan’ s exhibition “Kàn Bù Wán,” a collection featuring his newest works, and a show that will never be seen in its entirety.
In his epic video "Wang Yifan' s Clock––A Stakeout on Time" (2006), Wang Yifan filmed a common clock face that he had imperceptibly branded with his name, which was reworked into a trademark-esque logo. From a fixed position, he filmed the clock in its normal state for a full 24 hours, a length which he calls his “natural unit of time,” and employs in most of his video works. “Wang Yifan’ s Clock” is an understatedly simple artwork, whose simplicity brought it wide renown. The works presented here develop his previous tropes, the “Blackboard” painting and the 24-hour video. Wang Yifan’ s candid art production is realized on a grand scale in this exhibition, and by eliminating the possibility of seeing these works in their entirety he reinforces the idea that every way, every angle of looking at art is right.
Viewers are liberated and invited to interact with his works for any length of time they see fit, in some works, such as “Quietude,” minute changes will seem eternally new; in deconstructing others, such as “The Previous Exhibition” they discover that every way you view or present the work is novel.
“Kàn Bù Wán” challenges the versatility of the gallery space with three projectors showing video works, five screens (including the artist’s cell phone), and an original novella of 20,000 characters that has been hand-written over eleven canvases––straightforward enough for even a child to understand, but each concept presents uniquely original constructions that play on the notion of time, loss, memory and unmet expectations. Like an onion, each is obvious in shape and presentation, but as you peel back the layers, they become more pungent, and their logical construction is revealed. Using the most ordinary vocabulary to allude to extraordinary ideas, which, as we peel away the layers, become apparent.
