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The Art World in Focus
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Wang Youshen

WANG YOUSHEN

Per Square Meter ShanghART 13 September–20 October 2014 Beijing
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Press Release

ShanghART Beijing is pleased to present Wang Youshen’s solo exhibition Per Square Meter on 13th September, 2014. This is the first solo exhibition with Wang Youshen in ShanghART Beijing space, and also the first solo exhibition in Beijing after a lapse of 20 years.

Per Square Meter is an exhibition about an ‘event’: Artist twice experienced the process of constructing to dismantling of his studio from 2007 to 2011.

Two Studios in five years, from sign a contract, start construction to demolition, from blossom to fade. Time and space are compressed, everything running in a absurd way. A ‘Rashomon’ story is completed, which recorded a ‘uncontrolled’ daily behaviour.

Per Square Meter describes an extension of a physical unit of space related to a social event or an art event. The whole process is consisted of installation, picture, sound, documentary and paperwork, the multiple visual relationship paves an interesting path to the explanation.

The recent four years after 2011, Wang started the project Per Square Meter, in the process of deconstruction and reorganisation, he tries to complete a unrealistic reconstruction. A ‘uncontrolled’ daily behaviour and social event switched into a ‘controllable’ art production and artistic event, everything seems never happened, everything from realistic physical world changed into a illusive mental world.

Our individuals are like plural ‘per square meter’, keep the constant melting and reconstructing.

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About the Artist

Wang Youshen’s art is characterised by a focus on the influence mass media exerts on our thoughts, emotions, and actions. For example, the mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion, which are determined by value judgments if never explicitly stated. In his photograph-based images, Wang Youshen uses selected press images alongside private photos as the basis of his investigation into the various functions and values of images as well as their truth content and modes of employment. Having worked as a magazine editor, Wang Youshen is particularly concerned about the power of print imagery. This is directly reflected in his work Newspaper (1993), where he uses newspaper as raw material, both covering entire walls and printing them directly onto fabric for clothing. In a similar project called Newspaper Advertising (1993), he covered the Chinese wall with newspaper. By reusing the printed media in an entirely new context, Wang Youshen subverts and questions its original meaning.

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Also Exhibiting at ShanghART

All Exhibitions
Tang Maohong
TANG MAOHONG Simplified ShanghART 16 May–28 June 2026 Singapore
Xu Hongxiang, Zhai Liang
XU HONGXIANG, ZHAI LIANG The Gap Between Day and Night Shanghart 15 May–27 June 2026 SUHE
Hu Xiangcheng
HU XIANGCHENG Hu Xiangcheng: Anthology of Left Hand, Idle Ink on Scraps ShanghART 18 April–18 June 2026 Beijing
Fabrice Hyber
FABRICE HYBER L’Éponge qui pleure, The Weeping Sponge ShanghART 18 April–18 June 2026 Beijing
About the Gallery

ShanghART gallery was initiated in 1996 in Shanghai. It has since grown to become one of China’s most influential art institutions and a vital resource to the development of contemporary art in China with two spaces in 50 Moganshan Road (Main Space and H-Space), a public warehouse space in West of Shanghai (ShanghART Taopu), and a gallery space in Beijing and representing over 40 artists.

Being recognized for its importance ShanghART became the initial gallery from China participating in major international art fairs like Art Basel and Fiac, Paris. ShanghART gallery also enjoys the great respect of being among the 75 most influencial galleries selected in Thames & Hudson’s publication ‘International Art Galleries: Post-war to Post-millennium.’

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Address
261 Caochangdi, Airport Side Road
Chaoyang District
Beijing
China
Opening Hours
Tuesday - Saturday
11am - 6pm

Sunday, Monday
Closed
(1)
Beijing 261 Caochangdi, Airport Side Road, Chaoyang District
ShanghART contemporary art gallery in Beijing China
ShanghART
261 Caochangdi, Airport Side Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing, China
+86 106 432 3202
http://www.shanghartgallery.com

Opening hours
Tuesday - Saturday
11am - 6pm

Sunday, Monday
Closed
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