Solo Exhibition SHANGHAI TOP, Shanghai, Bldg 11
Opening: 4 September 2012 Tuesday 1600
Duration: 5 September - 20 October 2012
Venue: Bldg 11, SHANGHAI TOP, 18 Wuwei Rd., near Qilianshan Rd., Shanghai
Hours: 1000 - 1830 (Closed on Mondays)
Contact: +86 21 3632 2097
On 4 September 2012, YANG Zhenzhong will mount solo exhibition Passage in his atelier in TOP Art Park. The show space is divided into two sections by a passage, an artificial construction commonly seen in urban milieu, whose basic configuration——an exit and perspective lines which converge on the exit——is featured repeatedly in a series of videos and painting installations. Meanwhile, human activity is stripped away from these manmade spaces where the artist gives deliberately a presentation "destitute of content". As YANG comments on this exhibition, "'a passage' is a void space running from one content to the next, which is even not a process."
In this solo exhibition YANG Zhenzhong has approached the problem of space and perception. In the exhibition a video of various tunnels, corridors, and passages from a variety of locations precedes a series of paintings that distort and manipulate space creating a tunnel vision effect that is mimicked in the video. In both the paintings and the video YANG allows the audience to both participate in and observe his artistic manipulation of urban space while creating a unique relationship between the viewer and the viewed. Once having walked through the extremely narrow passage to view the video, the audience is given the choice of right or left. Each side contains a video piece, one room Straight Line and the other Exam, as well as a series of paintings. The paintings are laid out in such a way that the viewer is led through a maze; the narrow frame provided for the viewer mirrors the painted tunnels. This perspective connects the audience to the art, and gives them a feeling of inclusion. Each painting alone can be understood as illustrating the flowing and changing nature of urban life through images of tunnels and corridors that are often twisted and contorted, seemingly surreal.
Richelle Simon in July 2013
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