Group Exhibition: Access Through a Detour

This post is also available in: 简体中文 (Chinese (Simplified)) English

Artists: aaajiao, Wong Ping, Liu Yefu, Liu Yin, Nabuqi, Song Ta, Wang Shang, Cici Wu, Lantian Xie, Yu Ji, and Yan Jun

“Access Through a Detour” is a group show organized by Magician Space. The exhibition explores the discrepancy of what is seen and unseen to the viewer, looking at how artists move beyond the definable boundary of things. To go somewhere via a detour is not the same as losing a state of attentiveness. It is about taking into account something not immediately visible to our eyes – when there is a certain pleasure in being unmoored by a sense that an image can never fully capture something in its entirety. How does distancing help us to produce an effect within this situation? Here, we look at the role of strategy, allusion, and how the creation of new somatic experiences offers alternatives to discover – and help better articulate – people and objects. Many of the works choose a way to filter or locate a particular signal from a noise of information in order to clarify our way of experiencing a phenomenon.

The filmmaker Krzysztof Kieślowski once described the role of a filmmaker as akin to participating in a ski slalom: the skill is to weave between obstacles laid out in advance of the oncoming artist – who moves around to both obscure and resist – looking to find a path in order to arrive back to the audience. He was talking about barriers of Polish filmmakers as a game against constraints. Is there something we can gain by instead using an indirect approach to engage? What if we imagine these poles to be dispersed further away from us? In other words, is there anything else that a detour might grant us access to?

aaajiao (b.1984, Xi’an)

Lives and works in Shanghai and Berlin. Active as a new media artist, blogger, activist and programmer, aaajiao is the virtual online persona of artist Xu Wenkai. aaajiao’s works explore new systems of thought, emerging controversies and phenomenon surrounding the Internet – with many specific projects focus on data processing, the blogsphere/wemedia, and the filtration of information. His work has solo exhibitions organized at OCAT Xi’an, Xi’an (2016), Centre for Chinese Contemporary art, Manchester (2016), chi K11 museum, Shanghai (2013). Major group exhibitions including Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, Boston (2018); Haus der elektronischen Kunste, Basel (2017); Jewish Museum, New York (2016); YUZ Museum, Shanghai (2016); and chi K11 museum, Shanghai (2016).

Wong Ping (b. 1984, Hong Kong)

Wong Ping discusses his observations of society using visual animations and auditory narrations that touch upon the abstract desires, pathos, and stories inspired by the urban conditions and sub-cultures existing in Hong Kong. He was awarded the Art Sanya Award in 2017 and his work has included in institutions including a solo exhibition at Things that can happen, Hong Kong (2015). Group exhibitions include Arts Center Melbourne, Melbourne (2017); Centre for Chinese Contemporary art, Manchester (2016); and M+ Museum, Hong Kong (2015).

Liu Yefu (b. 1986, Beijing)

His works are influenced by pop culture and trying to give this chaotic society some dramatic interpretation. He is really interested in ideology and stereotype, which come from human history, race and memory. He likes to play with video, sound and performance by spending a little bit money. He got BA from Capital Normal University in Beijing (2009) and MFA from Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore (2014). Yefu’s recent works have been exhibited at Tai Kwun Contemporary (Hong Kong, 2019), Shards from the mirror of history Gene Siskel Film Center (Chicago, 2019); Magician Space (Beijing, 2018), Ullens Center of Contemporary Art (Beijing, 2017), Le Carreau du Temple (Paris, 2017), YUZ Museum (Shanghai, 2016), Magician Space (Beijing, 2016). His awards and nomitation include Huayu Young Artist Award (Sanya, 2016), Photographic and Electronic Media Graduate Fellowship (2012-2014) and his is the finalist of Toby Devan Lewis MFA fellowship (2014).

Liu Yin (b. 1984, Guangzhou)

Graduated from Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, and currently lives and works in Guangzhou. Liu Yin reinterprets a stream of images culled from news feeds, advertisements, as well as masterpieces from art history. They undergo a cartoon-effect as the images are painted again into another parallel reality re-imagined by the artist. She adds another layer to our way of seeing things, playing with our sense of knowing and feeling in this world. Major recent exhibitions include: BANK, Shanghai (2017); Arrow Factory, Beijing (2015); and M WOODS Museum, Beijing (2015).

Nabuqi (b. 1984, Inner Mongolia)

Graduated from Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2013, and currently lives and works in Beijing. Nabuqi works with sculptural forms in bronze and steel whose scale are often exaggerated or miniaturized in relation to the human body. The objects are perceived in an un-fixed state of movement between object and the transformation of its surroundings – a reciprocal process whereby human perception and the form of an object co-constitute one another. Previous exhibitions include: Sadie Coles, London (2017); UCCA, Beijing (2017); 11th Shanghai Biennale, Shanghai (2017); and Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju (2016).

Song Ta (b.1988, Leizhou)

Song Ta louche brand of conceptual art thrives on both the threshold of public tolerance and the emancipatory potential of a good absurd joke. He focuses on the enigmatic or eccentric hallmarks of a particular system, using his own unique form of humor and a series of caricatures to render visible clandestine forms of power and their endless network of bureaucracy. Previous exhibitions include: Times Museum, Guangzhou (2017); Sharjah Biennale, Sharjah (2016); Kunstmuseum Bern, Bern (2016); Para/Site, Hong Kong (2015); Taikang Space, Beijing (2015); and UCCA, Beijing (2013).

Cici Wu (b. 1989, Beijing)

Currently works and lives in New York. Cici conceives of sculptural ensembles whose anachronistic forms resist the rapid proliferation of technology and their covert role in conditioning behavior. She looks to heighten our engagement with culture to focus on more nuanced gestures and experiences, drawing on informal relationships to art making inspired by cinematic tropes. Her work seeks to avoid being political by reaching out for the universal.

Lantian Xie (b. 1988)

Lantian is an artist from Dubai whose works are often allegories of statelessness and belonging. Influenced by his transient connection to this region, he is interested in objects, stories, and situations where a slippage occurs between an image and its projected meaning. Xie holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and a recipient of the Sheikha Manal Young Artist Award of the United Arab Emirates. He recently exhibited in the UAE Pavilion at the 57th Venice Biennale and is editor-at-large at Dubai-based publishing practice THE STATE.

Wang Shang (b. 1984, Beijing)

Currently lives and works in Beijing. Wang Shang is an artist and certified gemologist, whose work examines the convergence of art, geology, and natural history. He graduated from Goldsmiths College and the Royal College of Art. Upon graduation, he founded his own brand, the eponymous S.H.A.N.G. This has allowed Wang Shang work between these two fields in order to explore their possibilities and differences. Major exhibitions include: Rubell Family Collection, Miami (2017); Art Basel in Basel, Basel (2017); OCAT Shenzhen, Shenzhen (2014); UCCA, Beijing (2011).

Yu Ji (b. 1985, Shanghai)

Yu Ji produces a constellation of work that draws together sculpture, installation, video, and performance. Her practice involves a long-term sculptural concern with volume and temporality, an inquiry that has expanded to an array of influences spanning ecological questions of a landscape, fragments of figures from archaeological ruins, geological features, bodily intervention, and man-made construction materials. She is co-founder of the not-for-profit AM Art Space in Shanghai (2008). This year she was nominated for the Hugo Boss Asia Art award and her work has been exhibited in exhibitions such as Sadie Coles, London (2017); 11th Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju (2016); and Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2014).

Yan Jun (b.1973, Lanzhou)

Yan Jun is an influential musician and poet in the field of improvised experimental music. His individual and collaborative performances span from an interest in feedback, field recording, voice, and amplifying body movement, silent intervals and the working with background sound in a direct unmediated manner. Other projects include using the homes of audiences as a venue for a tour of impromptu performances. Yan is member of FEN, Tea Rockers Quintet, and founder of the guerrilla label Sub Jam. His projects can be followed on yanjun.org.

- Catalogue