Embedded, Embodied Being

2020.12.19 - 2021.02.28

Artists: Chen Ruofan, Cheng Zhichu, Meng Lu

Project managers: Zhou Qinru, Wang Haoyang

Curator: Wang Haoyang

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It was not until the impressionists that has art - once deemed to fulfill a purpose rather than aesthetic values - been recognized with its own agency. Yet soon abstract expressionism again introduced us to a convention in which colors, media, and the process of creating are brought to the fore. We are no strangers to the embodiment of art, which manifest themselves through their indulging semiotics.

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Although not completely illusionary, freedom in aesthetic judgment also reminds of our powerlessness; an absent ability to escape almost every bit of control from the unintended, yet mind-bending and provocative, elements of symbols. While being overwhelmed by the global Great Acceleration, body is not only reinforced as the center of our self-identification, but also embodied through the nativity, intimacy and peculiarity of artwork. We are incapable of any precise judgment. However, ambiguous, the realness of their bodily forms and contexts seek us.

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'The body is our general medium for having a world.'- Maurice Merleau - Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception

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In contemporary art discourses, body often appears as a focus in artists' practices. Each represents the body and embodiment of the artists. Each tells the tale and reaches to the audience. While it arrives at the senses of the audience, narratives are spoken upon, relations established. Such understandings through the body of art are unique to every audience. Accordingly, audience not only individually experiences the extraordinarily multifaceted layers of interpretations, but also contributes to a collective amalgamation of a common sentiment.