Ding Shiwei | Disparate Illusion

7 September, 2015-15 October, 2015
Mao Space, Shanghai, China

Press Release

Video artist DING Shiwei’s solo exhibition, Disparate Illusion, will open on September 7^th in MAO SPACE Hengshan Fang. Works on display will include a single-channel video, Double Act, a five-channel animated installation, Goodbye Utopia, ink transcripts from these two videos, and drawings specifically created for this exhibition. In addition, MAO SPACE is, for the first time, dedicating its entire second floor to construct an Utopian imagination for the audience to explore. You are invited to embark on a sensual journey to his land of mist, haze and aloofness.

DING utilizes monochromic visualization to preserve conventional Chinese aura in his works alongside a narrative frame scattered with personalized vocabulary in his art; he furthermore employs low-pitched background music to invoke subjective estrangement. He captures ideological signs and epical features within secularity to manifest his artist’s statement on conflicts found in politics, aesthetics and society. These characteristics constitute DING’s tonality, which is staged at the intersection of time and space, where the metanarrative of our time is decomposed into a stanza of black and gold.

Yet, knowledge recedes from experience, and experience is essentially limited. Hence, we might not be able to enter the realm where DING is headed for via the path of pure image, since it is merely a form of self expression intended by the artist. Therefore, decoding and encoding can only be reached by on-site conversations, which, once catalyzed, may spark resonance.

DING Shiwei was born in 1989 in Hei Longjiang Province, China. He obtained his BA degree from China Art Academy in 2012 and is currently a master student atthe School of Intermedia Art. Disparate Illusion will last from September 7^th, 2015 to October 15^th, 2015.

Exhibition View