The Realms of Being and Non-Being

The Realms of Being and Non-Being

Liang Quan, Chen Wenji, Shen Chen, Ma Shuqing, Wang Tiande, Chen Qiang, Huang Yuanqing, Yang Maoyuan, Du Jie, Chen Ruo Bing, Chen Yufan, Zhang Fan, FuXiaotong, ZhangXuerui, Dong Dawei, Lisa Chang Lee, Li Shun, Yang Dingliu (sorted by age)

Period：2023.6.18-7.28

Opening：2023.6.18（Mon.）15:30-18:30

Venue：＃102,Bldg 18,No.50 Moganshan Rd.,Putuo District, Shanghai, China 200060

Ginkgo Space is pleased to announce an inaugural exhibition, "The Realms of Being and Non-Being," at its new location in Shanghai on June 18, 2023.

With this selected body of works by eighteen artists, the exhibition conjures sites of temporality and locality. While each artist inherits aspects of traditional visual culture in spirit and inner quality, their artistic practices have intentionally kept a distance from traditional visual patterns to highlight their artistic qualities.

The works in this exhibition are rooted in diverse expressions revolving around traditional culture, where the notions of "being" and "non-being" pertain to both the mutual relationship between the artist and society, nature, time, and the self, as they do to external disposition and a universal realm. At the same time, these artworks' "realms of being and non-being" are reinterpreted in a non-literary way to show the multifarious relationships between time and space. The exhibition aims to present ways of maintaining a distance from the present while living in it, the present, and the undertone and approach of the artworks on view shift from the "realm of knowledge" to the "realm of transformation," achieving a harmonious transition from spirituality to philosophy, while juxtaposing tradition with contemporaneity.

In a broad sense, "being" and "non-being" are antinomies. Their specific manifestations in the works of art pertain directly to artists' use of lexicons. In translating “being" and "non-being," artists focus on visuality and speculative components while emphasizing the perceptible and comprehensible cues and the subjectivity and automatism in their artistic practice. The tensions and spirituality in these artists’ works extend outwards, where  “presence" and  "absence," the “void," and "real" invisibly amplify the concept of "being" and "non-being ."In other words, the "silent void" and "specific presence" tangle with one another, traversing between "being" and "non-being" without attaching to any, but encompasses all beings. The exhibition will continue until July 28th.

Special thanks

Design: Liang Qing

Written by: Wang Yang

Translated by: Fiona He