​商徐宏

A solo exhibition of Xuhong Shang titled “Shadow” curated and presented by the de Pot in Shanghai from

July 28 to September 11, 2019. The cooperation between the artist and the de Pot is a cultural landscape presentation and exploration of this expression. The de Pot located at the corner of the street with a traditional vegetable market in the old French Concession of Shanghai, Middle Wulumuqi Road, used to be a gathering area of white-collar workers from various international companies and banks, which sprang up in the 1930s. This kind of mixed atmosphere within vegetable goods from the north and south of China and literati customers from the North and South of the Yangtze River continues to this day, develops into a more new and old mixture, continuously gathering artistic and cultural fashion pioneers around the world, but also to provide all sides of the old and young people to eat, drink and burn the basic life of the scarce urban center. This highly vibrant market and mixture natural continue growing, is the most direct window into the present. The de Pot is also an experimental space for art based on this.

 

    It is mean to different from art galleries or art museums setting. Not all the visitors who attend the exhibition with expectations. There are quite a number of passers-by, who either go shopping, eating, repairing clothes, drinking coffee and other daily affairs, completely without anticipation, which creating a different experience of viewing exhibitions. The Random series oil paintings and the installation of Momentary painting and video works are disorderly in two spaces facing the market in the de Pot, challenging the normal order and viewing.

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    The exhibition will take every passer-by as a part of the works being created, collide these abstract emotions created in the past with each individual passing in or out of nowadays, and create every new concrete moment, which is stored in a very mixed street background. In front of the pure white wall, a more distinct image is formed. These images are constantly covered and superimposed by the stream of people and the desire for basic living needs. The contents of the original works are constantly washed away by concrete daily life. It is impossible to predict whether the works themselves will eventually fall into the eyes of the viewers or disappear. Works and viewers present a white void shrouded in a chaotic background.

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    Everything is uncertain, just as the artist keeps saying goodbye to his works and entering new creation while displaying his works. When you see black shadows, you know where the sun is. When you see white shadows, the sun is where you can’t be sure. It seems to be a dream that does not exist, but a reality that subverts everything all the time.