Guan Xiao & The Intriguing Unknown: 'Flattened Metal' at The Institute of Contemporary A
The K11 Art Foundation (KAF) has announced its second collaboration with the ICA, London: Flattened Metal, the first solo institutional exhibition of emerging Chinese artist Guan Xiao in the UK, which runs from 20 April – 19 June 2016. Working mainly in sculpture and video, Guan Xiao (b.1983) explores how ways of seeing are now influenced by digital image and information circulation as an increasingly dominant source of knowledge exchange. In various works and installations, she endeavours to expand the aesthetic and cognitive possibilities for how meanings and identities are assigned and understood, without seeking to compartmentalise or fix definitions.
Guan Xiao’s work is occupied with our incomprehension of the past, and the way in which the unknown gives rise to intriguing discussion in the present. She juxtaposes references from the past and present (or future), weaving visual and audio material (including video clips found on the Internet), digital rendering techniques and found objects (ranging from alloy wheels and engines to various ancient or tribal artefacts) to create distinct and evocative installations that integrate so-called primitive and high tech elements. In this way, she offers fresh perspectives on what we perceive as the ‘new’ and the ‘old’. Guan Xiao’s first solo exhibition in London will include a new installation comprising five large printed screens, in front of which will be placed sculptures made up of various materials, including speakers that emit new audio works. As with previous works such as Documentary: Geocentric Puncture (2012) and Documentary: From National Geographic to BBC (2015), Guan Xiao optically merges the colour spectrum for the printed background screens (of the kind usually found in photographic studios) with the tonal range of the customized objects placed in front. The printed repetitive patterns are often taken from natural camouflaging phenomena such as animal or snake skins that are also reproduced artificially for clothing or accessories. Just as Guan Xiao is interested in finding formal equivalences rather than difference between the 2nd and 3rd dimensions in her object works, she also sets out to explore the interdependent connections and flow between different ways of understanding the world – and our place within it. For the first time, Guan Xiao will include text excerpts from other writers on the printed screens, including quotes from the British anthropologist and systems theorist Gregory Bateson (1904 – 1980) whose theoretical work embraced psychology, behavioural biology, evolution, systems theory, and cybernetics, as he worked toward a theoretical synthesis he referred to as "an ecology of mind." For example, in his book “Mind and Nature” he asked, "What pattern connects the crab to the lobster and the orchid to the primrose and all the four of them to me? And me to you?"
The exhibition is the second collaboration between the KAF and the ICA in promoting talents in Chinese contemporary art on a global stage. It is a major milestone that affirms KAF’s longstanding mission in developing emerging Chinese artists' careers through creating an exchange platform with leading cultural institutions from abroad. The exhibition will serve as a channel for Guan Xiao to further explore and present her multi-dimensional artistic practice to overseas curators and an international audience.
Guan Xiao: Flattened Metal 20 April - 19 June 2016 Lower Gallery, Institute of Contemporary Arts, The Mall, London, SW1Y 5AH 020 7930 3647 www.ica.org.uk/whats-on/guan-xiao-association-k11-art-foundation
Press Preview: 19 April 2016, 12pm Opening Reception: 19 April 2016, 6-9pm
