False or True No. 3
2016 - Sculpture (Sculpture)
9 1/2 x 10 1/4 x 9 cm
Li Gang
False or True No. 3 by Li Gang consists of two components. The first is a machine designed by Li that uses a pump to collect moisture from the air. It compresses the surrounding air into droplets using an air compressor. The droplets fall over a pile of cement powder, which solidifies according to the rate of the water droplets. Differences in the environment and humidity lead to differences in the water and the rate at which it is extracted, resulting in sculptures of different shapes. These machines are placed together to create Li’s “spatial sculpture machines.” The second component are the four sculptures of varying form “produced” by four different spatial environments. False or True arose from Li Gang’s interest in his sense of different “atmospheres” from one space to the next, which he hoped to find a way of presenting through physical means. On a trip to a rural slaughterhouse, Li Gang sensed a kind of matter that exists in a space, but cannot be seen, and felt that this was the Eastern concept of “atmosphere.” He began to ponder how to capture that invisible “atmosphere” in a space. He thought about collecting all of the air in a space, and the idea for this project was conceived. Precisely because Li Gang’s creation is a subjective artistic interpretation, and artistic perception cannot be proven by a series of concrete scientific principles, we cannot definitively refute the assertion that the concrete shapes and sculptures in False or True are the essence of the atmosphere of a certain space.
Li Gang’s practice creates a meticulous and poetic balance between materiality and conceptuality. His works, from his installations to his sculptures, and on to his paintings, are always marked by a substantive materiality, which the artist defines as the most important “language” in his art. But his practice is not so much a discussion of materiality as it is playing with the definition of materiality itself. Li’s work zeroes in on the relationship between materiality and the essence of things; the transformation and stacking of different materials; finding new forms of conveyance of materiality beyond common-sense, universal, or specific means of conveyance. The expression being pondered in his practice is not mere research of aesthetic form, texture and materials, but a consideration of social composition and cultural constructs. His environment and reality, from personal to societal, are represented with humorous manipulation in his sculptures and paintings. His work also speaks to memory. The social criticism his artworks aim to reflect lands not on the direct story behind them, but on a form of collective anamnesis experienced by individuals in resistance to the violence of an era. Such anamnesis cannot be achieved through narrative alone—it is naturally revealed in the contradictory relationships between matter, material, shape, and form.
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