We are honored to present Li Gang's Wuhan residency project "Forgetting", which is the artist's first time acting in front of a city, creating six new and different types of works through repeated deliberations, and these works are also a solid step forward in the artist's creative concept.
Installation view of the exhibition "Oblivion", Wuhan, 2024
Installation view of the exhibition "Oblivion", Wuhan, 2024
Installation view of the exhibition "Oblivion", Wuhan, 2024
Installation view of the exhibition "Oblivion", Wuhan, 2024
The core of Li Gang's creation in recent years began with his belief that the entity of the work must be real at a certain point in history, in which the basic attributes of the object such as distance, mass, material and other variables constitute the interactive relationship between them, and the artist only needs to give certain information in it, and the attributes of the object begin to unfold a chain effect, constituting a geographical, temporal, and historical barrier.
Installation view of the exhibition "Oblivion", Wuhan, 2024
Li Gang "What is Infinity" 2024 Water, aluminum basins, copper basins, pottery bowls, horn cups, dimensions variable
Specifically, in Li Gang's early important works, the work "Rosary" was given strength by public belief, but in recent years, the artist has gradually consciously eliminated the complex information that appears in the creative process and retained the most original and concise concept of the work. To make an assumption, if the work "Rosary" is placed in the desert and constantly weathered, and finally formed the work "River" through the natural washing and polishing of time, the key to this evolution lies in Li Gang's clear work method, among the two works with exactly the same production idea, "River" is more ancient and full of spiritual charm, and the "beauty of concept" is highlighted in the latter. At this point, Li Gang gradually established the basic law of materialistic conscious creation, opened up a more macroscopic creative picture, and resolutely became the defender of absolute "concepts".
Installation view of the exhibition "Oblivion", Wuhan, 2024
Installation view of the exhibition "Oblivion", Wuhan, 2024
Li Gang, "Consumables", 2024, axe, plastic sheeting, dimensions variable
On this basis, Li Gang believes that the time, distance, mass, mutation and other factors of the object itself do not need any processing, and its own function exists in time and space. For example, in the work "Oath", Li Gang determines that the weight of stones is from one to ten kilograms, but the broader and abstract understanding is that their "exact weight", and the wonderful thing about the concept of "exact weight" is that it not only conforms to the artist's creative ideal of absolute minimalism in the work, but also liberates all the stones scattered on the earth with the same weight, so it is natural to classify, group, connect and concretize all stones. If we stand far enough away and gaze at the earth, we will find that our earth is originally a dazzling star, and you and I are all luminous parts of it, and the "random distance" of all the stones in the world gives the stones a wonderful existence to each other. If the concepts of these two works are combined, all the stones with exact total weight are scattered and covered on the earth like igniting points of light, forming a huge network that extends infinitely to construct the geographical perception part of Li Gang's creation.
Installation view of the exhibition "Oblivion", Wuhan, 2024
Li Gang, "Geocentric Theory", 2024, snail, dimensions variable
Li Gang, "Geocentric Theory", 2024, snail, dimensions variable
Returning to Li Gang's exhibition project "Forgetting", the artist visited the Yangtze River in Wuhan for several days and found that the spiral texture of the snail shell along the Yangtze River rotated counterclockwise to the left. Li Gang named the work "Geocentric Theory" to compare the snail's mutation with thousands of years of history, triggering questions and reflections on inertial cognition. Assuming that it goes further, the real situation may be the mutation of the spinning snail, whose history of existence can be traced back to ancient times, then the "geocentric theory" is more of a concept that Li Gang wants to introduce a more distant time dimension, that is, the real history that will be misunderstood by inertial cognition in the past or the future, and this question raised by Li Gang is like Li Gang using the tiny whirlpool of a snail shell to open the balance of the water surface and stimulate infinite ripples, which continue to spread and touch the multi-dimensional historical boundary. Then the exhibition hall presents the time reversal of the spinning snail to Wuhan's infinite historical reverie.
Installation view of the exhibition "Oblivion", Wuhan, 2024
Li Gang, "Geocentric Theory", 2024, snail, dimensions variable
Installation view of the exhibition "Oblivion", Wuhan, 2024
In the structure of Li Gang's works, the overlapping of works builds the artist's latitude and longitude on geography, history, and emotion, and the infinite extension allows the artist's other creations to be carried out in a larger time and space. Among them, the work "Sun Throwaway" in this project narrows the scope of time and weakens the concept of time, while the other work "Consumables" takes "historical change" as the basis of time, implying that history repeats repeatedly. The works "New Morality" and "Mean Size" are also the chatter and echo of the repetition of history from the microcosm of individual life. The six works in the exhibition "Oblivion" are all about to tell the imminent or forgotten memories of sound, history, and time within this infinite coordinate in the concept of time and space.
Li Gang, "Daily Throwaway", 2024, sound installation, plastic bag, dimensions variable.
Installation view of the exhibition "Oblivion", Wuhan, 2024
Li Gang, "New Moral", 2024, A4 paper, lard, kraft paper, variable size
Exhibition Works Introduction
Geocentric Theory 2024 Snail Shells Exclusive Edition
The work is named after the "geocentric theory", a famous epistemology in the Middle Ages, which influenced and dominated the world for thousands of years, but was later proven wrong. Epistemology will directly affect people's worldview, form a mindset and influence value orientation, eventually become a kind of cognitive inertia.
The artist wandered along the Yangtze River in Wuhan and found that the spiral pattern of the snail shells on the riverside was counterclockwise rotation. With some field investigation, he eventually verified the observation. However, the artist, holding a firm belief in exceptions, decided to look for local snails with the opposite spiral pattern rotation, The act of looking for reverse snails is that a questioning and provokes the previous cognitive inertia. So when the snail shell with the opposite spiral pattern rotation really appears,at that time,the cognitive inertia is also loosening.
Equal Size 2024 Wall Chiseling Technique 3 Edition/2 AP Size Variable
In the exhibition hall, the artist chiseled off the plaster on one wall to leave the words "We forget what we want to remember"and carved out the words "We remember what we want to forget" on another. Here, the "remembering" and "forgetting" become accidental and uncontrollable, suggesting that the more we want to achieve, the more backfire we may often get.
The work "Equal Size", that builds on textual concept to directly speaks of the accidental of "forgetting" in human life and emotions. Its uncontrollability may seem like either a gift from heaven or a disaster. Within time, "forgetting" has become the only salvation of emotions.
Consumed 2024 Installation Steel Axes and Wood 6 Edition/2 AP Size Variable
The axe is a typical chopping tool withexplosive power.Because of the speed involved in the chopping move, the axe is powerful enough to instantly cause damage to the chop object. The use of axe seems primitive and barbaric, but when the axe handle is broken, the whole process gets completely disrupted. The absence of the axe handle blocks the participation of explosive power,that is a cancellation ofthe force.And the violent act of breaking the axe handle instantly covers up the primitiveness and barbarity of the axe itself.
Daily Disposables 2024 Sound Installation 6 Edition/2 AP Size Variable
Today is both the tomorrow of yesterday and the yesterday of tomorrow.
The artist recorded the sound of yesterday and has it played today, and the sound played today is also recorded and will be played tomorrow. Through such a pattern, the sound of today will be covering the sound of yesterday in an inclusive way and continuously overlapping. With the concept of "day", the work reminds the audience that the current era of modern trends is also changing and iterating by the unit of day.
What is Infinity? 2024 Installation Water, Containers 6Edition/2 AP Size Variable
The containers in the water each maintain their own weight, floating on the water layer by layer. They’re just like following certain laws of the universe to maintain the conservation of their own energy, neither increasing nor decreasing,neither more nor less.
New Morals2024 Installation Lard, A4 Paper 6 Ed ition/2 AP Size Variable
The paper, having been soaked by lard, becomes transparent to reveal the words on the next layer that were originally invisible: "Don't let food stain your blood." The sentence sounds like a belief or a warning, and the nobility of such words is defined by how a sentence is structured, such as: "Don't let money stain your eyes", "Don't let power stain your soul", "Don't let desire stain your body", etc. Such a proverb-like sentence structure usually hides a certain kind of incitement, and the widespread acceptance of the "proverb-style" language reflects that contemporary people long for some kind of discipline and guidance.
About the artist
李钢 | Li Gang
Born in 1986 in Yunnan, China, he currently lives and works in Beijing.
Li Gang regards artistic creation as the construction of emotional storage and spiritual containers, and tries to find the interrelationship with the language of art in the language of everyday things themselves, so as to analyze and interpret the original information and self-expression in the development of things, and transform them into special objects that can preserve emotions and spirits. Through his intuition of materials, Li Gang emphasizes the inner spirit and tension of the materiality of things themselves, and constructs a balance between the form and content of his works, so as to explore the realm of art and perception. Li Gang's work practice can be summarized as a concept of "material spirit" to discuss the materialistic process of art in people's survival emotions.
Recent exhibitions: "Forgotten" Outer Space, Wuhan, China (2024); "High Seas", Tigan Gallery, Beijing, China (2023); Galerie Rolando Anselmi, Rome, Italy (2022); "Nude", Galerie Urs Meile, Beijing-Lucerne, Beijing, China (2020); "Vowels" Galerie Rolando Anselmi, Berlin, Germany (2019); Fiction and Symbolism, Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki, Finland (2017); "Li Gang", Galerie Urs Meile, Beijing-Lucerne, Lucerne, Switzerland (2017). His works have been exhibited at: Power Station of Art PSA, Fiminco Art Foundation in France, Palazzo Merulana Art Museum in Rome, Kadist Art Foundation Paris, Walt Disney (China), Musée Confluence de Lyon, Fondation Louis Vuitton Art Museum, Palais de Tokyo Museum in Paris, chi K11 Art Museum, Yuz Museum Museum, Chengdu Zhi Art Museum, Chengdu Biennale, 6th Moscow Biennale, 3rd Ural Industrial Biennale of Contemporary Art, Steyr Autumn Art Festival and other exhibitions.
（图片文字 致谢艺术家及式外空间）
(Photo text: Courtesy to the artist and Outside Space)
