"The real nature of modern life is not that it is cruel and dangerous, but it's no features, dirty, listless." - George Orwell "1984" Walk at midnight, recording some of the "invalid" fun to record the number of steps as the coordinate points. For Example: 2643 + 3346 ("+" is no longer in mathematics, "plus", And become a symbol coordinate point of each record number.) 2643 is the number of steps walked south, while the number 3346 is the steps of walking north, the end of walking south and the start of walking north. Instead of recording time from a few to a few, it tends to walk away from alternative physical length of time. Meanwhile in the psychological level, time and space have become inaccurate. In fact, space and time are uncertain and inaccurate. In every walk of the night, I walk in many uncertain and inaccurate, which seems to form a "boundary", and become an individual Experience of walking around the board. The "border" has become a giant stage with light shining down on me in countless nights when I scroll and walk around the border. — 7/16/2015 Night The thinking about efficiency: “Wandering in the night, the experience of being recorded and displayed is not that efficient, but filled with invalid fun. Experience itself is only belonging to the artists while the audience is outsider who does not exists in the experience of creation. However, the...
“Around Mountain” is the metaphor for her methodology of creation, which is as well her discovery in this art project. “When we are physically in the space, while ignoring where we are, we finally get to re-inspect all around us. This is an involuntary process.” She had employed many different methods to abstract structural characteristics in this small and geometric space: observing special correspondence, displacing plan structure, penetrating physical partitions, or redefining structural elements. As her comprehension and perception of the space grows deeper, these methods are more and more enriched. These “rules” set up by the space had been making her creation like a game or a mission. In the iteration of her creation, she tried and started over again with joy and meaning. To her, “this might be a creation that never ends”. In terms of materials, Ren Jie utilizes minute but organic daily matters to build up the texture of her works, including papers, ink, plants, wax, wire ropes and textiles. It is thus in the space, the materials provoke conversations carrying their texture and hand making marks with space geometry. On the other hand, these daily matters become some other mustard seeds scattering in this small space, depending on each other to construct the image of a “mountain”, as well as physically independent to include in them one micro universe and another.
The creation of Yang Inhee has never been confined to canvas, but has found its way to disperse in the entire universe of her own. The canvases in her studio work like photographing negatives, which are drown, developed and then dried in the film developer. The seemingly random production process of her works has, however, not ruled out the rhythm, relationship and cadence of elements, but focused on letting go for a natural process. This is a period of time being that could only been revealed in the space of Yang Inhee, which she has noted down with full honesty. Her creation could not be concluded as certain canvas logic, but would rather be analyzed by the concept of the “traces” of her life. “The Back Studio” describes the evolvement of her individual psychology and creation technique after her arrival in Shanghai, as well as her mental and physical experience brought by her cultural background, her artistic research and creation, also her daily life, even the whole of her perception. When these contents which used to belong to “the back” has been overturned to the front to face the public, each line, shape and color on her canvases are blandly referring to her own story, which are as kind as the words with warmth when talking with the artist face to face. The creation of “The Back Studio” has been based on the artist’s actual living space. Since she has...
Literally, The installation of Wang Xin is about death and the experience of death. Her work invites the audience to join in the performance according to her own procedure, who would be able to experience the state of "death" and one's own mentality when the "soul" leave the corps. Wang Xin hopes to converse the subject of death and rebirth in the audience interaction. Different from the death experience in the death house, the project is designated by the artist to represent a unique death and rebirth experience weaving the utility of various media. In the plan, the artist would transform Mustard Seed Space to death -experience resembled "service-room". The project has made full use of interior structure of Mustard Seed Space. The three cabinets in the space has been transformed to: one registration room, one changing room, and a death-experiencing room. The white cubic boxes in the registration room is prepared to collect small objects offered by the participated to exchange for this experience, which would then be reserved as part of the exhibition. The staff with tailor-made badge to this exhibition would assist the participate to complete the whole procedure. The entrance of the third cabinet would be half enclosed as to yield a slot for one person to physically go through. After the participate has changed to the costume and read prepared documents, the staff would pull out the bed fixed to the trail behind the curtain...
For years, LIN Hao has been developing his language to depict the “three-dimensional” space through graphic paintings. At first, he embarked on his experiment on one-square-meter canvases with oil, acrylic and ruler as his key instrument for painting. But now, in his latest three-meter-long series, the fighters that he portrayed is seemingly soaring into the inaccessible sky, yet can hardly slip away from the restriction of the space. Literally, the title “Confined Space--ES MUSS SEIN” refers to a variety of tiny and limited spaces in underground or cabin and etc. While in LIN’s work, blue, white or yellow lines construct a virtual space against a dark grid-background, regulated and confined. Such perspective put the viewers under pressure, as if their breaths are stuck by the thinner air, resulting to a sense of autism and confinement from physical to psychological. Depression, tension, and contradiction are all there, permeating the space. Due to his excellence in realistic depiction, LIN has been tough on himself with rigorous criterion. In his works, the well arranged numbers and lines demonstrate a contemporary mechanism; the calm, constrained and moderate colours assist to form precise compositions that show phenomenal visual order. Usually, clouds are seen as among the lightest and most liberal material in nature, they are supposed to fly freely in the air. But in LIN’s view, they exist in an interspace that between this mundane world and the isolated “Confined Space—ES MUSS SEIN”; the flame...
Chen Yun is obsessed with life. For many years, she has been spared no effort to weave lines that are more and more sophisticated, to depict images that are more and more fascinating, so that to collect life forms of any kind in her ultimate kingdom. There, branches stretch like palms, tender shoots curls as the shape of eggs, long legs stand like trees, female face shadows in the blossoms; There are huge fishtails, and eyes, eyes, eyes …… On her canvas, any line could grow, breed, twist and combine freely. Everything is organic, and everything is alive. The fairy tale – like colour has always been her weapon to produce the kaleidoscope. In the series Eden, she tried to control the boundless imagination and restrain her ambition to establish a magic kingdom, and she finally managed to make a balance among refreshing, beautiful and fancy. But what she desires is far more than this. In her latest project Eternal Night, not only has she challenged to present the biggest scale ever, but also she has bravely chosen to leave out the appearance of colour this time, and return to the pure world of lines and simply examine her ability to draw them vividly with a computer mouse. Yes, a computer mouse. For long, CHEN Yun has been drawing with this. Using merely the tool of “pen” in the AI software, she clicks one joint dot after another, linking one...
Mustard Seed Space is thrilled to announce that the experimental group show, Poems, On the Wall will be on scene from 24th October 2014, in which, for the first time, the five artists work with poems as a visual medium. Originally, medium means an intermediate course of action that occupies a position or represents a condition midway between extremes. Here, the audience will find these artworks unique poems. Meanwhile, poems on the wall is going to become a new medium of art creation, just as other once-new mediums like oil on canvas, and to gain independent statues on the walls of museums and galleries. This exhibition dedicates to discuss poem as a visual representation of script, and its confrontation and coexistence with visual arts. At the mean time, on 25th October, the day after the opening, the curatorial team of Poems, On the Wall will present an extended show, 3 People in a Poem, at “The Gallery” during the West Bund Art Festival. In the afternoon, we will have the chance to see how the artist & poet, translator, curator work together behind the scene of an exhibition, how the show is produced and how they involve in other’s roles in an intermediate art space like “The Gallery”, an art project initiated by Chinese artist WANG Xin in 2013, showing those overlapping cases. In ancient times, people farm and work, writing poem to sing, matching poem with painting. The convergence...
ZHU has been employing a language that is implicit and reserved for long. In this exhibition, the way he works and the themes he has been exploring will be demonstrated through a series of slow yet poetic “movements”. In the era of global media, as the external disturbance is inevitable, artists often find the relationship between image and object complicate. But ZHU Ziqian departs from another side. By drawing, he senses the changes in his emotion; by experimenting over and over again, he searches for an original but direct expression. Gradually, he manages to develop a sort of philosophical thinking out of the daily practice of doodling. Speaking of the form animation, ZHU is very cautious. He treats animation merely as a means of presentation, and strictly controls the technical involvement in his works so that he would never be trapped. ZHU’s works are not only discussions about “movements”, but also explorations of the feelings deeply from the body and the existence of the “body” in both realms of time and space. ZHU Ziqian is adroit at creating contradictions and absurdities: the irrelevant pair of a shelf and an athlete in his early work Shelf and Lifter, the incorrect perspective of Playground, the juxtaposition of dropping coins and push ups in Push Ups …… all these contradictions force the audience to ponder over movements and beyond. In this exhibition, not only are his finished works displayed, but his sketches are...
“Landing” refers to the act of airplanes reaching the land safely after flying from a certain elevation, the exact moment. For long, PAN Xiaorong has been exploring materials and spaces outside of painting, attempting to break through the basic structures. In 2013, the project NO PROJECT he did at am art space was to detect the subtle connection between the viewers and the art piece. This summer, he smashes the stereotype of art being high up in the air, and brings it down to the earth again. After “Point Zero”，“Carving As Painting”，“The Rule of the Game”，“Material Sense”, PAN Xiaorong is carrying out his first art project of 2014 here in Mustard Seed Space, which is an effort to depict “landing”, a momentary condition. Regarded as “the second generation of experimenter on Chinese rational painting”, PAN Xiaorong has always been working within the frame of reason and logic. He employs simple tools and material like knives, cardboard and ink to cut and to describe in a calm and pure way, outlining the massive truth that is behind the simple lines. This time, he goes across the boundary – getting rid of the graphic language and turning to treat space as the medium again, though it seems to be pretty risky. The plain but artistic language employed by PAN Xiaorong eliminates the distance between the audience and the artwork, encouraging an equal interaction: he invites people to enter the gallery, to view...
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