The art works of the exhibition start from a fictional event made up by Tang Maohong: a group of people carry stones on their back and empty a riverbed. The event is similar to a Chinese fable famous story "Yugong Removing the Mountains". People are excepting to achieve an ideal outcome by uninterrupted working, even though no one really know what is going on: where are they heading to? How many people are going this? And is it possible to empty the riverbed? All these questions put the event to an unforeseen future.

Rather than answering these questions, Tang transforms himself into "the man carrying stone" by this exhibition. He elaborates the event repeatedly by the art works in the show. Photography is the first chapter of this series. A large number of black and white photos show the collectivity of the event, but meanwhile, the ambiguous identity of people, as well as the fakeness of stones make the tragic and serious behavior absurd.

This absurdity is more pronounced when the artist shifts the medium from photography to painting. Stone turns into other objects, such as legs, human bones, or unidentified symbols. In some works, even the human figures are also painted adhere to the symbol. By painting them flatly, the images bloom as scenes of kaleidoscope, and the images of "men carrying stones" has distorted. For the artist, the photographs in this exhibition are more like stones in the river bed. They are solid, straightforward, seemingly monotonous but full of rich details. While the paintings are the water in the river, staggered color groups and the flow of symbols constantly disperse the original intention of the artist.

About the exhibition

Dates: Sep 16, 2017 – Oct 29, 2017

Opening: Sep 15, 2017, 16:00, Friday

Venue: ShanghART Gallery

Courtesy of the artist and ShanghART Gallery, for further information please visit www.shanghartgallery.com.