Harriet Min Zhang
哈利
1. Projects
Somewhere in the fog / 霧下症狀
Clean noise / 靜噪
Time moves with merciful slowness... / 慢鐘
Under the gavel / 一聲千兩
The enduring ephemeral / 慢漫
Echoes of Mt. Qomolangma / 珠穆朗瑪的迴響
I spoke to them
Parallel
Blue cables in Venetian watercourse / 他山之石，新代理人
People’s Park Plinth
2. Public programmes
3. Writings
4. Translations
5. studio@DING
6. About
7. Chronological archive
Exhibition text
The exhibition, showing a collection of Zhuo Xiong’s recent paintings, is an attempt to exhibit his abstract symbols that entail thoughts and memories once belonged to himself. As Zhuo Xiong cares about communicating with audience through his work, the exhibition also emphasises on delivering his works pertinently and righteously. Here are my words to the audience.
[the unfilled and the spilt] Zhuo Xiong explores the complexities of different media and materials, often combining printmaking, dyeing, weaving or lacquer painting with oil or acrylic. Noticeably in the two-dimensional photos of his paintings, there is always blank space. However, if you look closer at each work, you will be able to find it an illusion; the unfilled areas are not free of paint, but dotted or covered with a transparent material. They can be sheer, matte, or even n looking corroded. Zhuo Xiong is not constrained by the frame; you will find his paintings spilling outside of the front and invading into the sides of the canvas.
[ritual of reciprocity] Zhuo Xiong considers the action of memorising as repositioning himself in these episodes. It is a natural infusion of thoughts into his body and he considers such serendipity a process of reciprocity between his past and present. The mutual exchange has allowed impressions to be reabsorbed. His inquiry into the world is a reconciliation with his childhood then and the reality now, realising a personal account into his current state of being - an entity filled with faith and confusion. While witnessing his seemingly arbitrary portrayals of pigs and dogs, of humans, of artefacts, of man-made events we are also guided into an assemblage of moments entailing his proximity to the world.
朝聖者2，焯雄，2022，布面油畫，60 x 75 cm。
[the second skin] The encounters in Zhuo Xiong’s works are never isolated events; they constitute a whole narrative within him. The memories and other symbols of consciousness become his second self, performing outside of him as the second skin. Zhuo Xiong’s paintings are such embodiments.
春晖，焯雄，2022，布面油画，60cm x 75cm。
[stickiness] There is a tactile quality to Zhuo Xiong’s works. Such tangibility is beyond the bodily sensation. It is a sense of stickiness delivered through his reciprocity towards the evocative memories. He has diluted these events into viscosity - a state half-way between solid and liquid. Yielding. Malleable. They are coming towards us. Diluting is also part of Zhuo Xiong’s exploration of techniques; when we both coincidentally mentioned about concepts of dilution or density, I found it important to deliver the tactility to you.
夜色温柔，焯雄，2022，布面油画，60cm x 75cm。
[oxymoron] Every re-encounter with past memories is short and no one can keep it fresh and still, but to paint it onto canvases has empowered it an enduring body. Yet again, it is confronted with changes and variants brought about by the surroundings. The ephemeral memories embedded in an enduring body of work has its own mechanism - something born out of oxymoronic conditions. They are also not comparable to the Anthropocene’s definitions of bodily nature, as they do not decay or become diseased the same way as we do.
[psychogeography with Zhuo Xiong] Psychogeography was often used as a technique to explore environments and interpersonal relations with places. Nowadays, the scenes to be explored are no longer just in the geospatial dimension of the wilderness, the urban, the rural, the bedroom; they may also be online, from the past or in the subconsciousness. The aimless but purposeful gesture extracts layers of abstractions, which is indeed pertinent to Zhuo Xiong’s way of working. To curate for Zhuo Xiong is to dérive in his works. As he does not like his audience overinterpreting his works, I encourage you to see the exhibition as a site for psychogeography, focus on the works, look for surprises and reciprocate.
External links:
Press release published on Gallery OM’s WeChat official account.
Installation views here.
哈利
Somewhere in the fog / 霧下症狀
Clean noise / 靜噪
Time moves with merciful slowness... / 慢鐘
Under the gavel / 一聲千兩
The enduring ephemeral / 慢漫
Echoes of Mt. Qomolangma / 珠穆朗瑪的迴響
I spoke to them
Parallel
Blue cables in Venetian watercourse / 他山之石，新代理人
People’s Park Plinth
2. Public programmes
3. Writings
4. Translations
5. studio@DING
6. About
7. Chronological archive
The enduring ephemeral / 慢漫
Zhuo Xiong’s solo exhibition
at Gallery OM, Shanghai
from 5 Nov 2022 to 11 Dec 2022
Zhuo Xiong’s solo exhibition
at Gallery OM, Shanghai
from 5 Nov 2022 to 11 Dec 2022
Exhibition text
The exhibition, showing a collection of Zhuo Xiong’s recent paintings, is an attempt to exhibit his abstract symbols that entail thoughts and memories once belonged to himself. As Zhuo Xiong cares about communicating with audience through his work, the exhibition also emphasises on delivering his works pertinently and righteously. Here are my words to the audience.
[the unfilled and the spilt] Zhuo Xiong explores the complexities of different media and materials, often combining printmaking, dyeing, weaving or lacquer painting with oil or acrylic. Noticeably in the two-dimensional photos of his paintings, there is always blank space. However, if you look closer at each work, you will be able to find it an illusion; the unfilled areas are not free of paint, but dotted or covered with a transparent material. They can be sheer, matte, or even n looking corroded. Zhuo Xiong is not constrained by the frame; you will find his paintings spilling outside of the front and invading into the sides of the canvas.
Installation views.
[ritual of reciprocity] Zhuo Xiong considers the action of memorising as repositioning himself in these episodes. It is a natural infusion of thoughts into his body and he considers such serendipity a process of reciprocity between his past and present. The mutual exchange has allowed impressions to be reabsorbed. His inquiry into the world is a reconciliation with his childhood then and the reality now, realising a personal account into his current state of being - an entity filled with faith and confusion. While witnessing his seemingly arbitrary portrayals of pigs and dogs, of humans, of artefacts, of man-made events we are also guided into an assemblage of moments entailing his proximity to the world.
[the second skin] The encounters in Zhuo Xiong’s works are never isolated events; they constitute a whole narrative within him. The memories and other symbols of consciousness become his second self, performing outside of him as the second skin. Zhuo Xiong’s paintings are such embodiments.
[stickiness] There is a tactile quality to Zhuo Xiong’s works. Such tangibility is beyond the bodily sensation. It is a sense of stickiness delivered through his reciprocity towards the evocative memories. He has diluted these events into viscosity - a state half-way between solid and liquid. Yielding. Malleable. They are coming towards us. Diluting is also part of Zhuo Xiong’s exploration of techniques; when we both coincidentally mentioned about concepts of dilution or density, I found it important to deliver the tactility to you.
[oxymoron] Every re-encounter with past memories is short and no one can keep it fresh and still, but to paint it onto canvases has empowered it an enduring body. Yet again, it is confronted with changes and variants brought about by the surroundings. The ephemeral memories embedded in an enduring body of work has its own mechanism - something born out of oxymoronic conditions. They are also not comparable to the Anthropocene’s definitions of bodily nature, as they do not decay or become diseased the same way as we do.
[psychogeography with Zhuo Xiong] Psychogeography was often used as a technique to explore environments and interpersonal relations with places. Nowadays, the scenes to be explored are no longer just in the geospatial dimension of the wilderness, the urban, the rural, the bedroom; they may also be online, from the past or in the subconsciousness. The aimless but purposeful gesture extracts layers of abstractions, which is indeed pertinent to Zhuo Xiong’s way of working. To curate for Zhuo Xiong is to dérive in his works. As he does not like his audience overinterpreting his works, I encourage you to see the exhibition as a site for psychogeography, focus on the works, look for surprises and reciprocate.
External links:
Press release published on Gallery OM’s WeChat official account.
Installation views here.