The Gods of Small Things: Group Exhibition
Past exhibition
Installation Views
Overview
XIAO XU
The Endless Glimmers of Hope 无尽珠, 2018
Ink on Paper 纸本水墨
84 x 60 cm
Don Gallery is pleased to announce that on March 11, 2023, it will present the exhibition "The Gods of Small Things" curated by SUN Wenjie.
"The Gods of Small Things" will include the latest work of six artists: MA Lili, QIN Xiaoshi, TIAN Qi, XIANG Kaiyang, XIAO Xu and ZHAO Qian. Media featured in this exhibition include painting, installation, video, and embroidery.
The works on show are rooted in the everyday aesthetic experience. The artists transcend the screen to mirror natural interactions, intersperse strange fantasy creatures throughout the exhibition space, highlight the extraordinary by taking the audience’s perception back and forth between scenes of reality and distortion, pursue life’s truths through the written word, reproduce traditional gods through embroidery, or use installation to bring viewers back to the legendary tales of the Pirates of the South China Coast.
The artists’ works echo each other, bringing reality into coexistence with myth, folklore, fantasy, and fictitious creatures. Through creation, figures from myth and folklore are given new life, but this is also because some gods already live on in digital life. For example, Investiture of the Gods (Fengsheng Bang) is hailed as the largest upload of digital life in Chinese history. Some of the situations presented in the artists’ work are no less an activation of a cross-section of traditional culture. Though the world we live in is still based on instrumental reality, the ambiguous relationship arising from the coexistence of fiction and reality raises doubts about the solidity of the laws that govern human society.
"The Gods of Small Things" presents a macro view of the artist's imagination; like dewdrops, these works also condense and refract our lives. Plants, currents, surging crowds, the shape of the wind…everything that we call “the everyday” is drawn into a vortex of chaos to re-emerge after a period of stasis. After living through the pandemic in this city together, are we still able to find constancy, reassurance, and trust in our personal lives and in the minutiae of the everyday? True, nothing here is on a grand scale. The exhibition space is filled with trivial, seemingly pointless and small things. Or rather, only the small things remain for us to speak of, and everything that cannot be said is found in silence.
"The Gods of Small Things" will include the latest work of six artists: MA Lili, QIN Xiaoshi, TIAN Qi, XIANG Kaiyang, XIAO Xu and ZHAO Qian. Media featured in this exhibition include painting, installation, video, and embroidery.
The works on show are rooted in the everyday aesthetic experience. The artists transcend the screen to mirror natural interactions, intersperse strange fantasy creatures throughout the exhibition space, highlight the extraordinary by taking the audience’s perception back and forth between scenes of reality and distortion, pursue life’s truths through the written word, reproduce traditional gods through embroidery, or use installation to bring viewers back to the legendary tales of the Pirates of the South China Coast.
The artists’ works echo each other, bringing reality into coexistence with myth, folklore, fantasy, and fictitious creatures. Through creation, figures from myth and folklore are given new life, but this is also because some gods already live on in digital life. For example, Investiture of the Gods (Fengsheng Bang) is hailed as the largest upload of digital life in Chinese history. Some of the situations presented in the artists’ work are no less an activation of a cross-section of traditional culture. Though the world we live in is still based on instrumental reality, the ambiguous relationship arising from the coexistence of fiction and reality raises doubts about the solidity of the laws that govern human society.
"The Gods of Small Things" presents a macro view of the artist's imagination; like dewdrops, these works also condense and refract our lives. Plants, currents, surging crowds, the shape of the wind…everything that we call “the everyday” is drawn into a vortex of chaos to re-emerge after a period of stasis. After living through the pandemic in this city together, are we still able to find constancy, reassurance, and trust in our personal lives and in the minutiae of the everyday? True, nothing here is on a grand scale. The exhibition space is filled with trivial, seemingly pointless and small things. Or rather, only the small things remain for us to speak of, and everything that cannot be said is found in silence.
Works
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XIAO XUThe Endless Glimmers of Hope 无尽珠, 2018Ink on Paper 纸本水墨84 x 60 cm -
TIAN QiJupiter 岁星神-木星, 2022Mixed media on canvas 布面综合材料31.5 x 51 cm
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ZHAO QianElephant Leaping On One Foot 单脚跳跃的大象, 2022Inkjet print on Hahnemühle archive paper, acrylic structure 收藏级喷墨打印于异形切割亚克力80 x 70 cm
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MA LiliMatrix N0.6 基体 N0.6, 2023Acrylic on canvas 布面丙烯100 x 120 cm
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QIN XiaoshiHoi Kok 海角, 2018LED light, UV Print, cassette box LED 灯，数码UV打印，磁带盒10.7 x 7.2 x 1.6 cm
