Taikang Space presents the group exhibition, “Pessimism or Resistance?” This exhibition consists of more than 30 artworks by 27 artists that expand a period from the late 1980s to the present, with a focus on politics. These artworks include photographs, video, paintings and installation. Moreover, a few artists will display their precious manuscripts.

Today, all is “politicized”. However, the exhibition “Pessimism or Resistance?” focuses on politics of reality and of the visible. Here “pessimism and resistance” neither refers to the categories of the artworks, nor to the artists’ creative intensity, or are those the keywords in understanding this exhibition. This title is a question thrown to the artists and the audience, asking ourselves as artists and the audience, what can we do and how to go about politics of a visual threshold? The exhibition attempts to present the artist’s creative process in dealing with this subject matter, by focusing on the artists’ subjects of interest and their semiotic shifts, as well as the artists’ interpretation and representation of the subject, and the relationship between the two. The exhibition aims to provoke further discussions and enthusiasm on this topic in the artistic world.

These artworks are centered on five main topics, “Spiritual Axis”, “Great Portraiture”, “The Everyday and The Collective”, “Rehearsal”, “Geopolitics and International Imagination”. Due to various setbacks and limitations, many wonderful artworks will not be displayed in the exhibition space. To compensate, the exhibition will be divided into the visible and the invisible, and the latter will be converted to 2D codes and dispersed throughout the exhibit. While visiting the exhibition, we encourage you to use your smart-phone to scan these codes, through which to open a channel in understanding the exhibition and the works on display. We would like to extend our most sincere respect and gratitude to the artists and their artworks that may not be exhibited at the space. We look forward to your presence.

Participating artists: He Yunchang, Song Dong, Lu Hao, Zhao Zhao, Xu Qu, Ai Weiwei, Jiang Zhi, Wu Junyong, Li Songhua, Wang Guangyi, Wang Jin, Polite-Sheer- Form Office, Mao Tongqiang, Ge Lei, Sui Jianguo, Yang Zhenzhong, Li Songsong, Jiao Yingqi, Hu Xiangqian, Qin Ga, Song Ta, Zheng Guogu, Xu Zhen, Liu Xinyi, Shi Wanwan, Zhou Xiaohu, Huang Yong Ping

Image: © Song Dong, Taikang Space