Curated by Leo Chen Li, 'Dawn Blossoms Plucked at Dusk' explores the aestheticization and temporality of everyday objects. The exhibition includes newly commissioned and existing works by Mark Chung, Gao Lei, Liang Yue, Eason Tsang Ka Wai, Wang Qingsong, and Yangjiang Group.
The appropriation and reproduction of found objects is integral to artistic recreation. Artists nowadays tend to be more actively engaged on physical, intellectual, and aesthetic levels—forming new connections with the materiality of everyday objects based on his or heraffective experience and knowledge structure. The aesthetic reproduction of objects also enables new experiences beyond their surplus value. Meanwhile, thanks to artist interventions and reproductions, objects are freed from their initial temporal and spatial constraints. Often with a limited use period, everyday objects are rooted in modes of production in the human economy. Persistent emphasis on the use value of objects marks how functionalistic and pragmatic our society has become.
When everyday items are transformed into or featured in artworks, their temporality shifts too. Aesthetic interventions lead to the construction of new space-time narratives. All the artworks in 'Dawn Blossoms Plucked at Dusk' take inspiration from household consumables, such as flowers, food, and equipment. By capturing everyday moments, recording performances and behaviors, or reconstructing the original space of everyday items, artists reveal the inherent contradiction between the transience and permanence of material, as well as generate aesthetic value on top of use value.
Some works in the exhibition evoke the artist's personal memories, while others convey doubts about norms and attempts to voice opinions in public. When staged in the unconventional exhibition space at Duddell's, these artworks based on everyday objects enter into dialogue with the existing tableware, furniture, floral decorations, and food, thereby fostering new narratives and resonances.
Press release courtesy Duddell's.
Level 3, 1 Duddell Street
Shanghai Tang Mansion
Central
Hong Kong
duddells.co
+852 2525 9191
+852 2525 9289 (Fax)