Interview｜He Xiangyu: Turtle, Lion and Bear
2017/3
PAST
He Xiangyu: Turtle, Lion and Bear
2017.3.18-2017.6.8
Qiao Space and White Cube are pleased to announce He Xiangyu’s first solo presentation in Shanghai. Taking place at Qiao Space in the Xuhui District, the exhibition includes the expansive video installation Turtle, Lion and Bear and works that extend He’s ongoing ‘Lemon Paintings’ series, for the former, it is the first time to be presented in China. In keeping with He’s dynamic and experimental practice, the works shown at Qiao Space are rooted in the artist’s interest in sensory perception and in developing visual devices to influence and disrupt the viewer’s reactions to his work. The ideas and responses prompted by He’s work in turn raise broader questions regarding notions of consciousness, selfhood and identity.
He Xiangyu’s preoccupation with the mouth as the site through which stimuli are transmitted is further explored in the new ‘Lemon Paintings’ shown alongside Turtle, Lion and Bear. Similar to his previous ‘Lemon Flavored’ series, the artist covers the majority of each canvas with bright yellow paint, prompting an instinctive acidic reaction within the viewer’s mouth. Small sections of each canvas are left blank, where the artist has drawn a simple pencil outline of a lemon, thereby creating a field of white-colored citrus forms. Due to the way in which He has intentionally arranged these forms in order to deny a natural resting point for the eye can focus on, the lemons appear to jump and vibrate on the canvas. Alongside the ‘Lemon Paintings’ the artist also presents a group of works on paper that offer an insight into the research and ideas that lie behind these paintings, while also perhaps suggestive of the future techniques that He will deploy in order to confound and challenge.The installation Turtle, Lion and Bear (2015) consists of a configuration of vitrines in which monitors display multiple videos showing people and animals yawning. It was originally shown at the Biennale de Lyon, France in 2015. Screened within a dark room, this video immediately absorbs the viewer and implicates them in the never-ending cycle of yawning due to the infectious nature of this unconscious action.
ARTIST
He Xiangyu was born in 1986 in Liaoning Province, China and lives and works in Beijing and Berlin. He graduated from Shenyang Normal University in 2008. Solo exhibitions include SCAI The Bathhouse & Kaikai Kiki Gallery, Tokyo, Japan (2016), Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing (2015), White Cube, London (2014), A4 Center for Contemporary Asian Art, Sydney (2012), Künstlerhaus Schloß Balmoral, Bad Ems, Germany (2011) and Wall Art Museum, Beijing, China (2010). He Xiangyu has also been included in various group exhibitions including Tales of Our Time Film Program (Screening of the film “The Swim”), Guggenheim Museum New York, New York, USA (2017); Hedge House Wijlre: Family Tree, Contemporary Chinese art from the Sigg collection, Bonnefanten Museum, Maastricht, Netherlands (2016); Juxtapoz x Superflat, Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, Canada (2016); Chinese Whispers, Paul Klee Zentrum, Kunstmuseum Bern, Bern, Switzerland (2016) The 13th Biennale de Lyon (2015), Fire and Forget, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin (2015), Shanghai Biennale (2014), Future Generation Art Prize: Exhibition of the Shortlisted Artists at the Pinchuk Art Centre, Kiev, Ukraine (2014), Busan Biennale, (2014), Yokohama Triennale, (2014), 28 Chinese and the Rubell Family Collection, Miami (2013).
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