Since 1992, Shi Yong (*1963 Shanghai) works and practice - experimental, rational and pioneering - largely influenced the art scene.
Let All Potential Be Internally Resolved Using Beautiful Form will present for the first time a site-specific installation, developed around the notions of space, material and language. Through 'erasure' and 'language' he will bring narrative vocabulary into 'reality': The kind of reality that can only be presented as a form of Abstract art. According to the words of the artist: 'I like to decompose narration by embedding a certain vocabulary, within a narrative context, until it becomes another language.' Using this concept of 'erasure' he reveals a covered or deliberately artificial reality.

In his new show, Shi Yong wants to tell us something but doesn’t want us to know what it is. There is a line of text cutting through all the highly formalized forms in the exhibition space, but the artist has made it into a secret by striking it through with a thick metal line, rendering the words indecipherable. All that remains are the abstract and disjointed arms and legs of Chinese characters whose bodies have been obliterated. So, maybe Shi Yong doesn’t want to tell us something and only wants us to know that he has something to say – but not to us. But if not to us, the only witnesses to this artwork, then to whom? (Text by Colin Chinnery)

Yong SHI -