Blindspot Gallery presents Mainland Chinese artist Li Jun’s first solo exhibition in Hong Kong "Impermanent Instant", featuring his photographic series Impermanent Instant, winner of the 2013 Three Shadows Photography Award.

The paradoxically named series exemplifies Li's photographic language that evokes the intangible by illuminating its absence. Impermanent Instant was shot over the course of three years (2008- 2011) after the artist had let the objects in his Chengdu apartment sit and become layered with dust for one year. In tracing the contours left in dust by everyday objects like slippers, vase, remote control and hangers, the photos draw the viewers' focus to the impermanence of existence. Against the invisible yet reeling film of time, human life and its temporal concerns fade into the void. The entire creative process is a combination of performance art, installation and photography that encapsulates and distills the subject.

Beyond its philosophical connotations, the metaphor of dust also alludes to the aftermath of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake that fills the backdrop of Li's creation of Impermanent Instant. The images are muted echoes of the nation's trauma which seems to have faded, along with the material objects, into the void of time. In simple yet intricate compositions, the artist conveys a singular perception that is characteristic of his work. For Li, the photographic instant offers no consolation for the living, but a glimpse into the impermanence of life.

-Blindspot Gallery

Image: © Li Jun
A Kitchen Knife in Kitchen
2008
Archival pigment print
60 x 75cm