Phenomena

2009 - Sculpture (Sculpture)

Yang Xinguang

location: Beijing, China
year born: 1980
gender: male
nationality: Chinese
home town: Hunan Province, China

Although seemingly unadorned at first glance, Yang Xinguang’s sculptural work Phenomena (2009) employs minimalist aesthetics as a means of gesturing towards the various commonalities and conflicts between civilization and the natural world. Comprised of rudimentary planks of wood hammered together into a rectangular form, Yang’s work uses reclaimed materials from everyday life and seems deliberately in conversation with Arte Povera, the art movement that originated in Italy during the late 1960s where practitioners produced art from found and common materials as an act of resistance against the decided commercialization of the art world through market economies. Yang, by extension, pays close attention to his materials in attempt to release the forms within them rather than impose his own. He rarely adds anything to the materials that he uses; instead, he chisels, pares and scrapes the excess away, allowing his completed works to emerge through a combination of happenstance and almost meditative handwork. In Phenomena , Yang’s handwork becomes apparent in a constellation-like form scratched into the wood. Suddenly, the nails and knots in the wood’s surface become vertices in a larger web of connecting lines, suggesting the inexorable interconnections between our alternately fabricated and naturally occurring environments. Rather than privileging one over the other, Yang’s work invites us to contemplate these relationships and how these coessential phenomena define our existence.


Yang Xinguang is an artist whose work explores the interconnections between the natural world fabricated materials in a post-industrialist society. His work is deliberately restrained and frequently uses reclaimed materials such as found wood planks, a gesture that recalls the Arte Povera movement’s commitment to using un-rarified and common materials in art making practice. His work is also deeply invested in exploring the phenomenological relationship between viewers and artworks, and his sculptural installations gesture towards Minimalist traditions, inviting viewers to pause and consider their own relationship to their surrounding space.


Colors:



Sexy
© » KADIST

Yan Xing

2011

Sexy shows Yan Xing unsuccessfully trying to reach orgasm in freezing temperatures among the falling rocks and howling winds of a precarious canyon...

Two videos, three photographs, several related masterpieces, and American Art
© » KADIST

Yan Xing

2013

The title of this series – Two videos, three photographs, several related masterpieces and American art – is paradoxical, suggesting the work is conceived in relation to its medium and a situation in art history and the region of the world in which it was made...

The Tower of Babel: Destruction
© » KADIST

Du Zhenjun

2010

The Tower of Babel is an installation of large-format photographs that forces the audience to occupy a central position through its monumental scale...

Other related works, blended automatically  
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Sexy
© » KADIST

Yan Xing

2011

Sexy shows Yan Xing unsuccessfully trying to reach orgasm in freezing temperatures among the falling rocks and howling winds of a precarious canyon...

Two videos, three photographs, several related masterpieces, and American Art
© » KADIST

Yan Xing

2013

The title of this series – Two videos, three photographs, several related masterpieces and American art – is paradoxical, suggesting the work is conceived in relation to its medium and a situation in art history and the region of the world in which it was made...

Ongoing Time Stabbed with a Dagger
© » KADIST

Geoffrey Farmer

2009

Ongoing Time Stabbed with a Dagger was Farmer’s first kinetic sculpture that added a cinematic character to an “ever-reconfiguring play presented in real time.” The assembly of various objects and props on top of a large platform constitutes not only a work, but, to a certain extent, a show in itself...

Collective Memories: Beijing Hotel
© » KADIST

Chen Shaoxiong

2007

After engaging primarily with video and photography for more than a decade, Chen turned to painting to explore the issue of urban change and memories—both personal and collective...

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Les Fleurs d’intérieur
© » KADIST

Danh Vo

2009

The work “Les Fleurs d’intérieur” (which gives its name to the exhibiton presented at Kadist Art Foundation from May 30 to July 13, 2009) is a brass plate engraved with the inventory list of the works included in the show...

See Works from Collector Pamela J. Joyner’s Historic Gift to SFMOMA - via ARTnews
© » LARRY'S LIST

The donation includes works by Elizabeth Catlett, Norman Lewis, Richard Mayhew, and more artists....

Still Waiting
© » KADIST

Proyecciones Espacio Odeón (Bogotá, Colombia) y Museo La Tertulia (Cali, Colombia) ¿Cómo enfrentamos la incertidumbre de estos tiempos? ¿Puede el juego, los sueños, o incluso las alucinaciones ayudarnos a imaginar otras posibles trayectorias? ¿Qué tipo de prácticas nos permiten relacionarnos con los territorios que habitamos? Tomando como punto de partida el potencial de lo inquietante en medio de una amenaza invisible, Sigo esperando es una serie de proyecciones en las fachadas del Espacio Odeón (Bogotá) y del Museo La Tertulia (Cali)...

Danh Vo, Where The Lions Are
© » KADIST

This publication was conceived on the occassion of the exhibition: Danh Vo, “Where The Lions Are” June 11- August 23, 2009 at the Kunsthalle Basel...

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Unregistered City series #1 #2 #7
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Jiang Pengyi

2008

Unregistered City is a series of eight photographs depicting different scenes of a vacant, apparently post-apocalyptic city: Some are covered by dust and others are submerged by water...

Dilemma, three way of fork in the road
© » KADIST

Jianwei Wang

2007

In Dilemma: Three Way Fork in the Road , Wang references Peking opera in a re-interpretation of traditional text...

Regard Eating Every Single Time as a Formal Declaration, My Stomach is Sexy out of Anger
© » KADIST

Xiaoyun Chen

2006

The image of rusted nails, nuts and bolts as shrapnel sandwiched between a fried Chicken burger highlights the contrast between decadence and destruction...

Diversionist
© » KADIST

Cao Fei

2004

Diversionist is part of the Cosplayers Series from 2004...

Related artist(s) to: Yang Xinguang » Bao Dong, » Duan Jianyu, » Guan Xiao, » Huang Po-Chih, » Jiang Pengyi, » Larys Frogier, » Li Qi, » Maria Taniguchi, » Moe Satt, » Philip Tinari  
» see more

David
© » KADIST

Guan Xiao

2013

David is a five-minute pseudo music video that features an upbeat melodic soundtrack with a duet by the artist Guan Xiao and frequent collaborator (and KADIST collection) artist Yu Honglei...

Weather Forecast
© » KADIST

Guan Xiao

2016

Mixed clips from her collection of thousands of images found online, the three-channel video Weather Forecast is an inquiry into the necessity of a physical movement (a travel) for our identity to transform or change...

Hands Around In Yangon
© » KADIST

Moe Satt

2012

Hands Around in Yangon is both a secular and religious exploration of the meaning of hands in Myanmar...

F n' F (Face and Fingers)
© » KADIST

Moe Satt

2009

These photographs document the hand and facial gestures in Moe Satt’s performance F n’ F (Face & Fingers) ...

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Primaveral forms
© » KADIST

Ana Roldán

2012

Ana Roldán’s Primeval forms series looks up close at the fecund shapes of plants often found in the artist’s native Mexico...

If There Ever Was: an exhibition of extinct and impossible smells
© » KADIST

In 2008, curator Robert Blackson began inviting some of the most renowned and trained “noses” in fragrance design to create an exhibition of “olfactory images” dedicated to advancing the perception of abstraction...

Doodood and John
© » KADIST

Chris Huen Sin-Kan

2013

Contrast to the bustling and unrelenting experience of a city such as Hong Kong, Chris Huen Sin Kan paints the tranquil interiors of his apartment, where he leads a modest and almost hermit-like life...

Artist Spotlight: Katia Lifshin
© » BOOOOOOOM

Artist Spotlight: Katia Lifshin – BOOOOOOOM! – CREATE * INSPIRE * COMMUNITY * ART * DESIGN * MUSIC * FILM * PHOTO * PROJECTS Submit A selection of recent work by artist Katia Lifshin (previously featured here )...