Installation view of Friseure, voice actress Haoyuxuan Liu, sounds designer Bo Wang, November 7, 2023 - December 10, 2023, Nan Ke Gallery, Shanghai © Di Yang. Courtesy Nan Ke Gallery
From the moment of entering the gallery, the viewer seems to have arrived at a novelist's home in Shanghai several decades back. The "novelist" uses the building as a structure, overlapping real and fictional worlds in a space where the boundaries are blurred. After a few steps, the video "Foaming Venus" is shown in a space that was originally a bathroom.
Installation view of Foaming Venus, actress Qing Wen, November 7, 2023 - December 10, 2023, Nan Ke Gallery, Shanghai © Di Yang. Courtesy Nan Ke Gallery
In literature, the bathroom is often constructed as a space that seems like a refuge from the chaos of life. "In the mirror of the bathroom is a face of misery, darker still is her future." The young girl in the image mirrors the protagonist in Yishu's novel The Soul of a Jade Pear, taking advantage of the enclosed space, the noisy water vapor and the naked body to ingest a moment of isolation from civilized society.
The long curly blonde-brown hair is like Botticelli's Venus, and the "goddess" represented by "Venus" has changed with the context of the times to become something like the "idol" of a girl group. The image of "idol" in girl groups has also changed with the context of the times to resemble the image of "idol". In the image, a young girl in the shower sometimes acts as a singer in her own fantasy, and at other times turns back into a bleak marginal role in real life. The difference is that the image of Venus, born from the foam of the sea, exists forever, while the foam girl in the film is like the meaningless foam of the shower, which survives for a moment and then is washed away. As her long hair, similar to Venus', gets wet and loses its shape, the girl's ideal self, the modern "goddess", becomes more unstable and difficult to capture.
Di Yang
Foaming Venus, 2023
Video
1920 x 1080 2K
10min 52sec
Actress: Qing Wen
© Courtesy of the artist
In ancient Greek mythology, Venus was born when the penis of Uranus, cut off by his son in a fit of rage, fell into the sea, stirring up thick white foam. On the three floors vertically above the image of "Foam Girl", the sculpture "Fragile" takes its shape from Boston Scientific's AMS 700 LGX artificial sponge, which will be available in China in 2022, and is a metaphor for society's "standards" for the male phallus. It is a metaphor for society's "standards" for the male phallus. The "male dignity" shaped and sculpted by the social structure is contained in a transparent acrylic box, dazzling and void.
Installation view of Fragile, Enrichment, November 7, 2023 - December 10, 2023, Nan Ke Gallery, Shanghai © Di Yang. Courtesy Nan Ke Gallery
The entire third-floor space is moulded into a fantasy hair salon, strung together by the ASMR sound piece, Friseure. In recent years, the demand for sound consumption has been expanding, fuelled by the isolation and closure caused by the epidemic, allowing sound - a faceless companion at a comfortable distance - to gradually take over major streaming platforms. The work gains the listener's trust as it unfolds, leading the listener to change shape with its movements, and then slowly sinks into the water, peeling back the human skin and giving the opportunity to change its appearance.
Installation view of Enrichment, November 7, 2023 - December 10, 2023, Nan Ke Gallery, Shanghai © Di Yang. Courtesy Nan Ke Gallery
In Deleuze's philosophy, "hair" is semi-bodily, originating from the body but not possessing the essence of the body - to feel pleasure - but can be arbitrarily cut and written, becoming an externalization of identity and social attributes and bringing " symbolic pleasure, the pleasure of symbolism". The hair salon, on the other hand, is a place where hair is controlled and written about, a "writing space" where the body is used as a text.
Installation view of Hypnotherapy, November 7, 2023 - December 10, 2023, Nan Ke Gallery, Shanghai © Di Yang. Courtesy Nan Ke Gallery
In the hair salon, hair escapes from its semi-body nature and enters a context outside the body, breaking into the chaotic society uncontrollably as a capable reference of the body and being loaded up in the frame of reference. The work Friseure, on the other hand, transplants the attributes of hair onto the whole body with the help of surreal exaggeration, conveying more intuitively the reverse effect of "appearance" on "identity", and the limitations and persecution on the spirit that may arise from it.
Installation view of Enrichment, November 7, 2023 - December 10, 2023, Nan Ke Gallery, Shanghai © Di Yang. Courtesy Nan Ke Gallery
Installation view of Amusement park, November 7, 2023 - December 10, 2023, Nan Ke Gallery, Shanghai © Di Yang. Courtesy Nan Ke Gallery
The works on the shelves continue in this vein. The artist has painted various comb shapes on translucent cowhide. The different forms of combs from ancient times to the present day are displayed to express the long history of hair order. The exquisite and regular printed pattern contrasts strongly with the original cowhide, highlighting the dislocation between the exterior decoration and the original body.
Di Yang
Relax, 2023
Cowhide, acrylic spray paint, mineral pigments
110h x 65w cm
© Courtesy of the artist
Di Yang
Fly Along the Left Side of Light, 2023
Cowhide, acrylic spray paint, mineral pigments
100h x 90w cm
© Courtesy of the artist
This concept is echoed in the installation of bronze mirrors, where Kawakami Tomie's form is cleverly transformed and deleted, making it appear as a frame of perfect appearance, lying dormant and waiting to frame every visitor who needs to create and demand his or her own appearance.
Di Yang
The mirror of yourself, 2023
Purple brass, brass, horn combs
Front panel: 55.4h x 31.6w x 0.1d cm
Backbord: 60h x 40w x 0.7d cm
Pedestal: 10h x 42w x 1d cm
© Courtesy of the artist
Installation view of Enrichment, November 7, 2023 - December 10, 2023, Nan Ke Gallery, Shanghai © Di Yang. Courtesy Nan Ke Gallery
The photographs by the window on the other side reproduce the "sinking" of the episode narrated by the voice, with the moon suggesting the tides and the desire for natural rhythms. The water below is the wake of a ship that the artist photographed while traveling in Iceland on a boat to a smaller island. The search for a deeper end beyond the end of the world seems to suggest a true "escape".
Installation view of Tides, November 7, 2023 - December 10, 2023, Nan Ke Gallery, Shanghai © Di Yang. Courtesy Nan Ke Gallery
In the work presented in Enrichment, Di Yang uses his usual artistic language to organize the ideas of the exhibition in a literary structure, so that it looks both like the framework of a novel and as if it can be condensed into a query - why, in a modern society where all kinds of human needs are constantly being more and more precisely Why is the collective spiritual condition deteriorating in a modern society where all human needs are being more and more precisely targeted and satisfied? The answer may be unanswerable, but each work in the exhibition seems to be a guideline and a clue to inspire the viewer to complete the picture on his or her own.
Text by Roxane Fu
Friseure
Sounds Designer/ Bo Wang
