ShanghART Shanghai is delighted to present Shi Yong's solo exhibition, Turning Inward, Until Disappearing. This exhibition is the 3rd solo exhibition of the artist in ShanghART gallery. Shi Yong has always been pursuing the experimentation in artistic creation, which is prominently manifested in his speculative use of Chinese characters, words, texts, and concepts. With this inspiration, he created a large number of works that have been influential both in the national and global art world. The exhibition will present his new series of conceptual sculptures and installations, highlighting his breakthroughs in text and material.
Shi Yong is known as the master of simplicity. His work is a poetics of concise writing, with a distinctive style and inimitable recognition. Over the years, he has insisted on condensing the extremely rich concept and plastic appeal into his works: Shi Yong values concise form rather than tediousness, and prizes touchability of the content rather than meaningless correct words.
Since the outbreak of the Covid-19 epidemic in 2020, the entire world has become closed and compartmentalised. In Shi Yong's view, the enclosed interior can no longer be seen clearly, like a labyrinth, and each closed interior is filled with the fact that individuals are pulled and shaped by various forces in the system. This exhibition can thus be seen as a certain kind of "stress response" to the changes and stimuli of the external environment, as well as a personal redigestion and reprocessing of this "stress response". The imagery of the labyrinth not only exists as a narrative method – just like a detective novel – but also the result of Shi Yong's deliberately obfuscating his thinking and expression. The title of the exhibition Turning Inward, Until Disappearing is both a summary of the form of the work and a refinement and metaphor for the reality.
Press release courtesy ShanghART.
Bldg.10, 2555 Longteng Avenue
Xuhui District
200232, Shanghai
China
www.shanghartgallery.com
+86 216 359 3923 / +86 215 424 9033
+86 216 359 4570 (Fax)
Tue - Sun, 11am - 6pm