Shao Yinong & Muchen
“A Splendid Web from Heaven to Earth”
Opening 15 April 6:30 – 8:30pm
15th April, 2014 – 3rd May, 2014
10 Chancery Lane Gallery, Central, Hong Kong
[23 March 2014, Hong Kong] 10 Chancery Lane Gallery is proud to present Shao Yinong and Muchen: almost eight years since the duo’s last titled exhibition in Hong Kong, Shao Yinong and Muchen return with four series of enlightening new works as a tribute to the new stage of their creative venture. The exhibition will open at 10 Chancery Lane Gallery in Central from 15th April, 2014.
The acclaimed artist duo Shao Yinong and Muchen have been working together and individually throughout the years. Since the first collaboration entitled Family Tree, to the highly critical and successful Assembly Halls, they have been documenting the part of history in which they lived through with mixed media including photography, painting and installation. Having experienced the decades of rapid developments in China, the artists pity the vanishing of the quintessence of traditional Chinese culture. The search for meaning within the social context has eventually shifted to the concern on cultural humanity. Muchen said, “What remains today can tell you what have varnished in time. Since Assembly Halls, we have looked beyond the recent history in which we lived through, eyeing on a broader history concerning culture and humanity.”
A Splendid Web from Heaven to Earth is an installation of a giant web flowing delicately from ceiling to the floor. The stainless-steel-made web looks shimmering and inviting from afar. However, as one gets closer, what seems so still and peaceful a moment ago suddenly turns unsettling. The conflicting feeling is a metaphor of the chaos in today’s world. It poses a question to our being, a threat to our sense of existence. The Hrdaya, or literally “Eternal Heart”, is a series of wood works by Shao Yinong. As he takes off the layers of bark of the tree trunk following patterns of its annual rings, the artist uncovers the pagoda-like structure hidden in it. He further fills the cracks of the trunks with ash which is commonly seen in temples in Qinghai area. The installation triggers a religious and spiritual reading into it, inviting the viewers to look into eternity through traces of life.
Also in the exhibition are the photographic work, Webbed by Muchen and a series of etching by Shao Yinong entitled, Objects of Nature. Shao Yinong and Muchen have selected these four series of new works to conclude a stage of their on-going research in the past few years. It also marks the beginning of another journey for the artists, one that leads to a deeper search concerning both the external and internal worlds.
About the artists:
The powerful artist duo Shao Yinong and Muchen are a married couple who work together and separately. Their works are exhibited on the international art scene and Art in America (2004) stated that they were “by far the best artists in the whole of the 2004 Shanghai Biennial”. Their well known photographic series, The Assembly Halls, from 23 different provinces of Mainland China captures in truth and simplicity the very profound leftovers of the cultural revolution, which spanned between 1966 until 1976. The empty halls devoid of life reek with a ghost-like atmosphere of the past at once nostalgically beautiful and at the same time simmering with the historical intensity of one of China’s most turbulent periods. Their recent work East Wind West Wind is currently in a touring exhibition in Europe entitled Political/Minimal. Their embroidery series, Spring Autumn, has never been exhibited. The 30 works have been in the process of making since 2004.
The artists currently live and work in Beijing. Their works have been internationally exhibited at the Groningen Museum in The Netherlands, The Tate Liverpool Biennial, Guangzhou Triennial in China, the Pompidou Center in France, the Queensland Art Gallery/Gallery of Modern Art in Australia, the Mori Museum in Japan, the Shanghai Art Museum in China, the Israel Museum and the multi-city U.S. touring exhibition Past in Reverse, as well as other touring exhibitions and museum shows
