"Access Through a Detour" is a group show organized by Magician Space. The exhibition explores the discrepancy of what is seen and unseen to the viewer, looking at how artists move beyond the definable boundary of things. To go somewhere via a detour is not the same as losing attentiveness. It is about taking into account something not immediately visible, when there is a certain pleasure in becoming unmoored with a sense that an image can never quite fully capture something in its entirety. In this context, how does distancing help us to produce an effect within this situation? Here, we look at how strategy, allusion, and creating somatic experiences can offer alternatives to discover – and help better articulate – people and objects. Many of the works choose a way to filter or locate a particular signal from a noise of information in order to clarify our way of experiencing a phenomenon.

The filmmaker Krzysztof Kieślowski once described the role of a filmmaker as akin to participating in a ski slalom: the skill is to weave between obstacles laid out in advance of the oncoming artist – who moves around to both obscure and resist – looking to find a path in order to arrive back to the audience. He was talking about barriers of Polish filmmakers as a game against constraints. Is there something we can gain by using an indirect approach to engage the world? What if we imagine these poles to be dispersed further away? In other words, is there anything else a detour might grant us access to?

About the exhibition

Dates: Jan 19, 2018 – Mar 11, 2018

Venue: Magician Space

Artists: Liu Yin, Liu Yefu, Na Buqi, Song Ta, Wang Shang, Wang Xu, Wong Ping, Cici Wu, Xie Lantian, Xu Wenkai, Yu Ji & Yan Jun

Courtesy of the artists and Magician Space.