From Shi Qing’s early interest in the subconscious, as manifest in legends and fairytales, he has developed a symbolic and ritualistic style in order to resist what he sees as the ‘vulgarisation of sociological questions’ and ‘the poverty of experience within current conceptual art practice’. Shi Qing increasingly turns towards experimentation as the means of production, as well as research into the issues surrounding the creation of social spaces. He has developed a modus operandi whereby each exhibition is treated as a site-specific project, determined by a new set of conditions. This approach allows the artist to resist any political and aesthetic dictates that he feels are frequently imposed by a contemporary globalized art system.
Shi Qing’s work is created within a framework which enables him to identify a series of interconnected subjects, ranging from Socialist architecture and environments, geology, botany, weather patterns to art and its communities. The work often brings together pre-fabricated objects such as wooden cubes, cardboard boxes, Styrofoam, plaster, metal structures and potted plants. These objects do not function as vessels for particular material aesthetics, but, at most, serving as the impetus for ideas. The objects brought together in this exhibition reveal both the constant shifts in Shi Qing’s areas of interest and also the works unifying methodology.
About the exhibition
Duration: 4 February – 7 March 2015
Venue: Inside the White Cube, Hong Kong
Courtesy of the artist and White Cube, for further information please visit http://whitecube.com.
