The past, the future, thoughts, concepts, meanings, feelings are virtual.
What do you think is virtual?
There are multiple ways to interpret this word. It is related to the thing that does not physically exist. For example, the experience created by new technologies, such as online virtual books and virtual reality, is virtual. It is a subjective thinking interspace, which you can enter and play around with. It is also related to the thing that is not completely described and its effects have not yet been recognized or defined. Some hypothetical scientific and academic terms like photons or economic models, are virtual. “Virtuality” connects our minds to the material world. It is real but not material. The relationship or dialogue between you, reading this sentence now, and me, is virtual. That word, across aesthetics, philosophy, new media and other disciplines, is a tool you may use to view this exhibition.
He Huiqi’s short film, The Outsider, creates a Jorge Luis Borges’ fictitious world. The plain but absurd dialogues and plots ironically present the loss of function of mundane objects’ in space and time in our modern life. Ye Jiang recontexts a real key on a canvas and an ipad in his woodwork structure to create a television-like object. He thinks our life is virtual. Ding Desiree’s light boxes of the work, Line, virtually present the places with plenty of sunshine whereas the ceramic work, Retain, virtually represents the writing formats. Liu Beining’s photography, Rubblings of Images, is like a sketch of the actual world. We all fall in love with the virtual images on the mobile screen. His images as a part of the world evoke a new kind of poetic feeling.
本展览将在东百老汇36号大隐于市的文化空间“7s Labo”举办，呈现三位在纽约生活与学习的中国青年艺术家丁冬、叶江、何卉琦的作品。策展人邵沁韵引述了普鲁斯特在《追忆似水年华》中的言语「是真而非现实，是意而非概念」引出此次展览的主题，三位艺术家分别以陶瓷、灯箱、装置与影像等媒介的触角，伸向真实与意念的「月之背面」。
丁冬长久以来以陶瓷与影象的结合的方式探索乡愁与年月的流失，此次展出的陶瓷作品《固定格式》以无釉瓷板塑造的「写作格式的纪念碑」来倒映出内容善变与弱质的伤感，而类似的情绪也在灯箱装置《线》当中以国度掠影的方式呈现。
叶江具有具象绘画的学院背景，而他在装置《无题与无题》中让「物件」挣脱「画面」，而又以屏幕禁锢肉体，在综合材料绘画与屏幕动画的遥相对应开启了日常中的异质「兔子洞」。
何卉琦的短片《局外人》延续了此前水墨画作品与同名展览《迷津》中的对比格局，在短片内，公寓主人与客人的日常酬答与反常场景的交错并进，引出观众自身「身体与设备」的迷局。
