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: Independence of the country
© » 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...

History of Chemistry I
© » KADIST

Lu Chunsheng

2004

A mesmerizing experience of a vaguely familiar yet remote world, History of Chemistry I follows a group of men as they wander from somewhere beyond the edge of the sea through a vast landscape to an abandoned steel factory...

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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...

Stone Deaf (Drawing)
© » KADIST

Milena Bonilla

2009

Milena Bonilla’s discursive practice explores connections among economics, territory, and politics through everyday interventions...

Beyond Geography
© » KADIST

Li Ran

2012

In his video work Beyond Geography , Li dramatizes the role of the artist-as-imitator to the point of sheer parody...

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Les Fleurs d’intérieur
© » KADIST

Danh Vo

2009

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Glorie #7
© » KADIST

Caspar Heinemann

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Unregistered City series #1 #2 #7
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Jiang Pengyi

2008

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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...

A Gust of Wind
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Zhang Peili

2008

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Diversionist
© » KADIST

Cao Fei

2004

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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...

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...

Untitled
© » KADIST

Maria Taniguchi

2015

Maria Taniguchi works across several media but is principally known for her long-running series of quasi-abstract paintings featuring a stylized brick wall device...

Untitled (Celestial Motors)
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Maria Taniguchi

2012

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Primaveral forms
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