Wang Gongxin: In-Between

19 Jan-26 Feb 2022

Overview

White Cube Mason’s Yard is pleased to present a new exhibition by Wang Gongxin titled ‘In-Between’. The show takes its title from Tanizaki Junichiro’s ‘In Praise of Shadows’ (1933), an essay exploring the shadows of traditional Japanese interiors against the dazzling light of the modern age.

In a group of 13 new multimedia works, Wang expands on Tanizaki’s thesis, as well as Japanese architect Kurokawa Kisho’s idea of ‘grey space’ in which distinctions between inside and outside, artificial and natural and individual and collective are blurred. Using a variety of high-tech and conventional art media, including video screens, neon lighting and precision-milled and carved marble sheets, these works draw on East Asian cultural traditions to describe contemporary conundrums.

Born in 1960 in Beijing, Wang is a pioneering video and media artist, one of the first in China to use digital special effects. He began his career emulating the neorealist styles of the West, later foraying into abstraction when he moved to New York. Always closely connected to the spirits of his time and two artistic bases, China and the US, Wang wrote, ‘I have the stubborn belief that shifts in the form of art through time must be closely connected to real life, social environment and existential condition of people in the present’.