A Thousand Plateaus (Chengdu) and Good Weather (North Little Rock / Chicago) are pleased to present a joint presentation of new work by Zhai Liang (China) and Matt Siegle (United States) for Liste Art Fair Basel in 2021. The shared booth has been conceived of as a multiaxial presentation of sculpture (Siegle) and painting (Zhai) that draws from the socially-engaged elements of each artists' practice.
Siegle and Zhai have a synchronistic concern with the indexical and quotidian qualities of reference. Both artists explore these qualities through a conceptual framework that reveals the disjointed and expansive potential of language and knowledge. Zhai's new series of paintings 'Grid 3' is composed through close observation and study of the multi-dimensional meanings of words. He transforms these words into visualised 'hypertext' and extends them into a spatial narrative. One level of this method is a wall-bound matrix: a fundamental structure of contemporary words that are addressed and laid out in rows and columns (and classified based on the index of an ancient Chinese encyclopedia from 300 years ago) with each potential axis serving as a directional grid to create, categorise, and display Zhai's perpetual production of paintings. These experiments dissect and reconstruct conventional linguistic relationships and design a formula that frees the combination of words within Eastern society from an interlocking stability—revealing the time-based notions of order that seem intrinsic to language and instead returning it to its unencumbered ancient roots.
Siegle's work also aims to unpack this compounded foundation. His performances have dealt with rhetoric sourced from 'classic' literature and spoken word (speeches, songs, diatribes) that make up the construction of an assumed Western ideology. Through his sculptural practice, he turns this gaze towards geological and personal conjecture (and consumption) and sources materials from his travels and domestic life: wasted plastics (Poland Spring Water, Xanax Rx, Seventh Generation dishwasher soap), bathroom reading materials (local publications for VT green living, queer leather journals brought from LA home), CDs, tetrapacks for soup stock, etc. Digesting and processing these artefacts and ephemera of bodily existence through an individual and subcultural lens, Siegle disfigures and assembles a visual language (like Zhai) which continues to question and disrupt accepted canons of meaning and knowledge within the political landscape.
A Thousand Plateaus Art Space represents these artists: