Messy Code

June 22, 2020 — July 12, 2020

Curator: ZHANG Zhao
Artists: 0907, DING Ziyu, GE Ruiqi, JIANG Keqi, LI Xianwen, LI Fan, LIANG Zhichao, RU Zeyin, NIU Tong, Song Long, ZHAO Hua, ZHANG Jingxian, ZHENG Xinhao, ZHANG Zhao

Since the beginning of 2020, many people have been living a complicated and anxious life, with unexpected chaos and accompanying difficulties hindering daily life maintenance. These six months are like a chain of messy codes, caught rigidly in a coherent everyday context, difficult to be interpreted by past experiences. Reversing the perspective, in a context of abrupt change, individuals also like messy codes, which are difficult to be disciplined. This situation is a two-way perceptual confusion, but it does not first appear at this time; it is always in a tangle with the land and order. All 14 participating artists have deep ties to Xi'an, and in one way or another, they all wrestle with the perceptual chaos they encounter through their artworks. This exhibition presents the trajectory of these tussles.

The exhibition "Messy Code" is set in a formerly busy urban village in the southern suburbs of Xi'an, where many stores have been closed since the pandemic due to a decline in customers, and thus an opportunity to rent a street storefront. The artists and I worked together to temporarily transform the storefront into a "white box," deliberately creating a perceptual rigidity and disparity, hoping to provoke a more realistic response from the viewers and the surrounding residents in an overwhelming form and even a hint of new imagination.

(ZHANG Zhao)

^{Opening Video︎︎︎}