10 Chancery Lane Gallery presents Shao Yinong and Muchen: almost eight years since the duo’s last titled exhibition in Hong Kong, Shao Yinong and Muchen return with four series of enlightening new works as a tribute to the new stage of their creative venture.

The acclaimed artist duo Shao Yinong and Muchen have been working together and individually throughout the years. Since the first collaboration entitled Family Tree, to the highly critical and successful Assembly Halls, they have been documenting the part of history in which they lived through with mixed media including photography, painting and installation. Having experienced the decades of rapid developments in China, the artists pity the vanishing of the quintessence of traditional Chinese culture. The search for meaning within the social context has eventually shifted to the concern on cultural humanity. Muchen said, “What remains today can tell you what have varnished in time. Since Assembly Halls, we have looked beyond the recent history in which we lived through, eyeing on a broader history concerning culture and humanity.”

A Splendid Web from Heaven to Earth is an installation of a giant web flowing delicately from ceiling to the floor. The stainless-steel-made web looks shimmering and inviting from afar. However, as one gets closer, what seems so still and peaceful a moment ago suddenly turns unsettling. The conflicting feeling is a metaphor of the chaos in today’s world. It poses a question to our being, a threat to our sense of existence. The Hrdaya, or literally “Eternal Heart”, is a series of wood works by Shao Yinong. As he takes off the layers of bark of the tree trunk following patterns of its annual rings, the artist uncovers the pagoda-like structure hidden in it. He further fills the cracks of the trunks with ash which is commonly seen in temples in Qinghai area. The installation triggers a religious and spiritual reading into it, inviting the viewers to look into eternity through traces of life.

Also in the exhibition are the photographic work, Webbed by Muchen and a series of etching by Shao Yinong entitled, Objects of Nature. Shao Yinong and Muchen have selected these four series of new works to conclude a stage of their on-going research in the past few years. It also marks the beginning of another journey for the artists, one that leads to a deeper search concerning both the external and internal worlds.

-10 Chancery Lane Gallery

Image: © Shao Yinong and Muchen
Courtesy of the artists and 10 Chancery Lane Gallery