Quarter and Moment/Exit and Entry: Duo Exhibition of Song Dong and Yin Xiuzhen
This exhibition, which attempts to explore a new approach to presenting “solo exhibitions,” stands on the one hand as solo exhibitions that highlight distinctive personal characteristics of individual artists, on the other as “group exhibitions” that foster dialogue and co-fusion, closely involving audience participation. Song Dong and Yin Xiuzhen each named their solo exhibitions after the title of one of their works: Quarter and Moment and Exit and Entry respectively. Leveraging the museum’s architectural features, the north and south halls will be dedicated to separate solo exhibitions by each artist, while along the central axis running from the first to the fourth floor, the space will alternate between collaborative works and individual pieces by each artist. This layout, guided by the themes of each artist, aims to create a dynamic circuit of mutual circulation.
Through their distinctive materials, language, and artistic styles, the two artists, adopting two approaches to creation - independent and collaborative - and engaging in both macroscopic and microscopic perspectives of observation, offer a complementary and speculative expression, as well as an entirely new form of exhibition. This exhibition transcends mere communication and dialogue between the two artists through their individual works. Instead, it is also an exploration and shared narrative that emerges from the interplay between their works. Additionally, in terms of the exhibition itself, there is an attempt to explore new ways of constructing and presenting solo exhibitions for artists in contemporary contexts.
Throughout the exhibition, the two artists shift perspectives via the alternation of a series of works, highlighting the variation and interplay between external change and internal reconstruction, and presenting the flashbacks and loops of the journey of life in the form of a thought experiment. The exhibition is more than just a documentation of personal experiences and reflections shared between individuals; it is also a historical and contemporary narrative of collective change. This offers us an opportunity to retrospectively contemplate the trajectory of life, to examine, observe, and reflect on a moment’s experience, an approach, a kind of tradition, and a place’s civilization, identifying with the history as well as the future, the individual as well as the collective.
Song Dong: Quarter and Moment
4 works created individually by Song Dong and 2 works created collaboratively with Yin Xiuzhen are on display in this exhibition. Among these installations, video works are woven in between to bridge the connections between them. The spiritual and symbolic meanings conveyed through the physical superposition, unfolding, and reconstruction of fragments from daily life imply broader issues related to individual life experiences. Time is the gene and blood of these works, which, in a wider context, address drastic changes and permanence in evolvement, as well as the reflection and reconstruction of the relationship between the universe and nature, human communities, family kinship, and spiritual order…
Yin Xiuzhen: Exit and Entry
12 works created individually by Yin Xiuzhen and 2 works created collaboratively with Song Dong are on display in this exhibition. This series of works by Yin Xiuzhen showcases the artist’s concern in a microcosm sense with individual life experience under the macro perspective. The exhibition continuously raises questions worthy of reflection stemming from the artist’s ongoing concerns. In response to the evolving times and societal realities, Yin presents depth through figurative elements, exploring the interplay between individual lives, the mutual reflection between individuals and communities, the mutual projection of heaven, nature, and life, collective consciousness versus individual understanding, as well as the exploration of civilization and cultural issues.
About the artist
Song Dong was born in Beijing in 1966. He graduated from the Fine Arts Department of Capital Normal University in 1989 and now lives and works in Beijing. Song Dong emerged from the early Chinese avant-garde art movement and became an important artist with international influence in the subsequent development of Chinese contemporary art. His artistic practice spans multiple fields such as performance, video, installation, sculpture, photograph, and painting. He explores the concept of impermanence and explores the transient nature of the human condition and creates his art and lives his life with the idea of "no boundaries". Song Dong has participated in numerous important international art exhibitions including Documenta 13, the Venice Biennale, the Sao Paulo Biennale, the Gwangju Biennale, and has held large-scale solo exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, the Groninger Museum in the Netherlands, the Kunsthalle, Düsseldorf in Germany, the Rockbund Art Museum in Shanghai and other public institutions. Song has won awards including the Grand Award presented by the Gwangju Biennale, the Chinese Contemporary Art Award (CCAA) for Outstanding Achievement, the Artron Art China (AAC) Video and Installation Artist of the Year, and the Power 100 of Chinese Contemporary Art: Artist of the Year. His works are collected by important museums and art institutions such as Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Tate Modern, Centre Pompidou, M+, and Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, among other important museums and art institutions.
Yin Xiuzhen was born in Beijing in 1963. She graduated from the Fine Arts Department of Capital Normal University in 1989 and now lives and works in Beijing. Yin Xiuzhen started her contemporary art practice in early 1990s. Her works are experimental and diverse. She takes the experiences, memories and impressions of different people and the imprints of cultures and the times as her key creative elements and uses materials that feature introspection and experimentation that showcase a broad expression of creative and artistic forms. Her work involves installation, performance, porcelain, photograph, video, painting, sculpture and many others. Yin has become a female artist with broad international influence and has participated in many important international art exhibitions including the Venice Biennale and its Chinese Pavilion; the Sao Paulo Biennale; the Biennale of Sydney; the Shanghai Biennale; the Gwangju Biennale, the Yokohama Triennale, the Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, among others. She has also held solo exhibitions in the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, the Groninger Museum in the Netherlands, and the Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf, in Germany. Her works have been collected by Tate Modern, Centre Pompidou, Groninger Museum, Mori Art Museum, Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf, Art Gallery of New South Wales, M+ and Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, among other foundations and institutions.
Location: ENNOVA Art Museum, West hall 1,2,3, public space
Address: 300m south of the intersection of Jinyuan Road and Xinkai road, Langfang Eco & Tech Development Zone, Hebei Province, China
Opening Hours: 10:00-18:00, Tuesday to Sunday, last admission at 17:30, closed on Mondays (except legal holidays)
