”Empty Stance and Sway \u2014 To the Era Pretending to Dance at the Crossroads”<\/p>\n
By Wang Yalei<\/p>\n
In today’s era, no period in history has provided such abundant opportunities for people to look back on themselves. Even though big data is driving the solidification of personal information bubbles to create outlets for consumption, for most people, the amount of information trapped in these bubbles is far more abundant than in any previous time. Thus, we are no longer living in an era that can be called “true\u201d or \u201ccorrect.” As China rapidly modernizes and urbanizes, unresolved issues resurface, stirred by the turbulence of time. This has fragmented people\u2019s cultural tastes and ideals\u2014old standards have weakened and new ones emerge from individuals or small groups, leaving no unified answers. Once the grand collective narratives loosen and are quickly swept away by the torrent of bubble-like information, making it difficult to rebuild. But the existing systems of answers are fragile. After all, with the great development of science and the explosion of information, the view of the starry sky that we see now is different from the one seen by people a hundred or a thousand years ago. We know that what we see are light, matter, time, dimensions, life… rather than the twinkling eyes of the night sky. New knowledge often comes with the questioning or even denial of existing knowledge, hindering people\u2019s courage to explore. Every step toward the “known” brings us closer to a larger unknown abyss. The doubt about what is known and the fear of what is unknown cause hesitation in the pursuit of knowledge, eventually trapping us in\u00a0the dilemma between the known and the unknown.<\/p>\n
In this era filled with “truths” and “reversals,” thinking becomes painful because questions always outnumber answers. To know is difficult; to act, even harder.<\/p>\n
The exhibition ” Empty Stance and Sway ” selects\u00a0several works in the A4 Art Museum’s collection, most of which were created after 2010. These pieces construct a dynamic balance through their materials, methods, and concepts, reflecting artists\u2019 exploration of personal style and visual experimentation. The works provoke curiosity and mental tension: Do they tell a story, or are they metaphors? Are they aesthetic displays or abstract imaginations brought into form? The visual form brings the artist\u2019s thoughts into reality, while the actual scene before our eyes points toward a more abstract imagination. “Empty Stance” is a term from Kongfu, where the foot barely touches the ground, existing between attack and defense. The addition “swaying” breaks the original intent of the movement, transforming a static uncertainty into a dynamic interplay between virtuality and reality. It sounds like a dance step, but it is still just a movement \u2014 much like what we all do every day: keep ourselves moving, searching for direction within the movement, searching for problems within the direction, and trying to find answers within the problems.<\/p>","protected":false},"featured_media":5153,"template":"","categories":[1],"exhibitions_category":[43],"class_list":["post-5152","exhibitions","type-exhibitions","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-a4-art-museum","exhibitions_category-xinanyishushengtai"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.a4artmuseum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/exhibitions\/5152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.a4artmuseum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/exhibitions"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.a4artmuseum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/exhibitions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.a4artmuseum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.a4artmuseum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.a4artmuseum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5152"},{"taxonomy":"exhibitions_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.a4artmuseum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/exhibitions_category?post=5152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}