HERE, WHERE, THERE?
Almine Rech Shanghai presents a group show entitled Here, Where, There? by Cai Zebin, Chen Yingjie, Hou Zichao, and Tseng Chien-Ying. Since the dawn of humanity, there has always been an innate urge to create the illusion of space on flat surfaces.
July 12 – August 10, 2024
Prehistoric humans used cave walls as their canvas, as seen in the life-like murals of La Grotte de Chauvet created more than 30,000 years ago; standing before them, one is almost transported back to a distant era. Though Modernists and Purists might view the construction of fictional spaces on canvas as mere illusionism, dismissing it as artifice and deceit to viewers.
For Cai Zebin (born in Guangdong, China in 1988), "my imagination is the sum of the images from my everyday reality." His works are firmly rooted in real-life spaces, enriched with meticulous observations and reflections on everyday life. Ordinary scenes of domesticity are imbued with new possibilities, with humanoid robots present in these everyday settings, evoking dramatic interplay between the extraordinary and the mundane.
Chen Yingjie (born in Guangdong, China, in 1991) works across various mediums, including canvas paintings, large-scale murals, live performances, and art installations. He explores the fusion of traditional Chinese ink painting with Western street graffiti to establish a new, personal artistic language, taking viewers on a journey through time and space into an infinite cosmic space where the past, present, and future intertwine.
Traversing between reality and fantasy, Hou Zichao (born in Shanxi, China in 1988) blends traditional painting techniques with the visual language of digital imagery. Viewers are transported into virtual digital spaces that are both familiar and brimming with novel visual elements. The artist is particularly interested in constructing personalized fictional landscapes, embarking on spatial explorations within his canvases that detach from real-world environments.
Tseng Chien-Ying (born in Nantou, Taiwan, in 1987), renowned for his meticulous 'Gongbi' Chinese-style paintings—characterized by highly detailed brushstrokes and vivid colors depicting narrative scenes—captures the fantasies and illusions of the human mind in surreal scenes full of magical colors, like a dreamscape.
Chinese architect Tong Ming mentions in The Myth of Space: "The center of space is the person who perceives it. Therefore, in each space, there is a directional system that changes with human activities. The space is not neutral but has boundaries. More specifically, it is limited, non-homogeneous, and determined by subjective perception. In this space, distance and direction are determined based on their relationship with people within it. "