Finding Relief in Nothingness

2024.03.10 - 04.14

SHI Xiang
Group Exhibition, DNArt Space, Beijing
Curator: Ren Zhitian

    Nostalgia for Dadaism, where meaninglessness seemed more like prophecy and defiance. Yet today, our adversaries no longer share the same magnitude, leaving us engulfed in a state of bewildered powerlessness! Consequently, we lose will, passion, and courage, yet seemingly find reconciliation.

    Thus, meaninglessness becomes a pure solace. We might even suddenly “awaken”: the meaninglessness of life is the most precious.

    The deeply rooted human essence of art enables it to shine with innate brilliance in any context, delighting us like being enraptured by a captivating dirge.

    Rebuke… roll of the eyes… jocosity or pretentiousness… This isn’t Dadaism, it’s Dada itself.

    ——Ren Zhitian

    Installation Views

    About Artist

    SHI Xiang

    Shi Xiang, born in 1987 in Tieling, Liaoning Province, graduated from the Department of Fresco and Mixed Material Painting of Hubei Academy of Fine Arts as an undergraduate in 2010; graduated from the Fourth Studio of the Oil Painting Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts with a Master's Degree in 2016, and now lives and works in Beijing.

    In his creations, he continues the previous Chinese artist's thinking about still life, and maximally dissolves the color, replacing it with a renewed cognition of the object, and an understanding of the shape, volume, and even the essence of the object, using the most simple materials and methods to dig into the most easily overlooked aspects of everyday still life.