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With Xing Si, the artists has sought to develop the work drawing direct inspiration from Dong Qichang, a literati of the Ming Dynasty (ne.1555-1636) whose parallel fascination and questions upon perspective won equal admiration. The transfiguration of the traditional landscape, which the curator terms “deformation”, is one derivative of the experiment in perspective, photographic works (unframed C-prints) depict scenes reminiscent of rocket explosions, military arsenal or the billowing exhaust of aircraft. The clouds or smoke are actually replicated by the use of Styrofoam and synthetic materials molded in their shape and the mimetic effect obscured by the photographic process. Multiple layering equally allows for a re-examination of what is real and non-real as ice and water in turn are created by plastics and subject to the same photographic mimetic. The visual subterfuge is aesthetically charged and obvious references to the visual traditions associated with Shan Shui painting.

One wall holds the actual Styrofoam replica of the mountains suspended by stainless steel frames at acute angles from one another. The juxtaposition of the actual spatial replica to that of the photographic works seems an intentional play on the senses: from a diametrically opposed installation of the different media one is given to reflect on the question of appearance and reality with ironic ambivalence. Nature and the hostile repercussions of humankind of this era seem para-bound to the artist. An accent is placed on the environment and survival as a floor space is covered by a thick application of flour and water paste which has been brushed in a spiral manner to manifest as an approximation of naturals clouds. Upon this multi-tinted cloud swirl is installed a tent created from aeronautic safety material with a golden sheen. The shimmering thermal insulation houses two monitors which run in independent cycles depicting moments of the proud achievements of science as well as the great instances of tragedy. Spaceflight and ineendiary flames oscillate upon either screen in intermittent cycles, the originality of the footage in stark contrast to the illusory façade of protection which veils them from initial observation.

Cultural and historical travesty are brought within the artists incessant exploration of what is defined as real and the fusion of the experiment with perspective and material. In an encased glass table, multiple images (photographs, silkscreen and print) are juxtaposed by layer and at random. The idealization of human physical form by the Nazi propagandists is represented by an actual photograph of that era- three acrobatic nude men having created a triangular geometry of themselves. The fantasist inspiration which led to the construction of the anachronistic Neuschwanstein Castle by King Ludwig II of Bavaria under the architectural force of Eduard Riedel, Georg Dollman & Julius Hoffman is represented by a highly diminished image of the castle itself. The duality of cultural accident and export present in the inclusion of one ceramic plate designed and made by the British in an attempt to replicate the traditional motifs of Chinese porcelain and another, an authentic ceramic plate of Chinese origin yet whose motif was radically altered from that belonging to indigenous tradition in an attempt to satisfy the supposed desires of the colonists and foreign consumer potential of the British Isles.

Contrast, delineation, visual documentation, replica and transfiguration are interwoven and act as an ambiguous movement in the language of Yip Lap Wing. In a manner parallel to certain tenements of Buddhist and Daoist theory, the movement is profound yet obscured, the “ real “ remains in the dynamic or kinetic definitive moment rather than affixed to a linear perspective often ascribed to Occidental philosophy or its measurements of experience.

Xing Si is an exceptional project at the conceptual fore. The exhibition offers no conclusions, avoids symbolic stasis & provokes one’s own sense of perception as the artist enacts an oeuvre that is simultaneously obscure, void of limitation and subversive in (and, of) nature.

R A Suri
25/02/2009