I spent a long time wondering about the title before I decided on it. I was hesitant, but it didn’t mean that I didn’t know what I wanted to express or how to express my feelings; on the contrary, I always wanted to extract and condense the information that I wanted to convey, each work carries “many ideas” what I want to say, rather than only “one of thing”, hence it appears the storyline overturns and starts again, and overturns and again, until the emergence of “Inhale, Exhale”, I finally find the truth in hundreds of millions of times of the splitting the self.
Inhaling and exhaling are two individual but indivisible states, and are the most instinctive actions of all the things in the world, between the inhaling and exhaling, all the things actually don’t exist, things are born in nothing, and return to nothing, so it goes in a cycle, like this. Buddha says: The length of life is during inhaling and exhaling, which means life going and returning following a circle; inhaling and exhaling is a kind of absorption, taken from nature, from parents, from the surroundings, which makes us subtly and solidly contact the mysterious side of nature. We always think we know it, the core secret of life and universe hidden between “inhaling and exhaling” is a “zero” secret that is difficult to clearly explain and make people understand, it is an indistinct concept, it is regression, returning the truth, standing in the center of the land of the infinite, and then follows in a circle giving birth to one, one gives birth to two, two gives birth to three, three gives birth to all things, to be in an infinite state.
In the materialistic city, living in prosperous, blatant, and debauchery scenes, people find it hard to perceive their existence. We often forget things including life, consciousness and value, behind the inhaling and exhaling, even the slightest trace can't be seen clearly. This is the normal state of modern people, which should be removed but is the hardest to change. If one really wants to feel the state of “inhaling and exhaling”, I think it is a kind of freedom, it is a kind of instinctive regression.
The city is inhaling and exhaling, life is inhaling and exhaling, the environment is inhaling and exhaling, spirit and soul is inhaling and exhaling in every moment, between the inhaling and exhaling, it suddenly becomes enlightened.
Creation is a way of inhaling and exhaling for me, a language to dialog with XXX, which makes my stomach satisfied. I am fortunate to find it, betting on the love of it and I strictly adhere to it. If not, my life will be hungry, always being hungry from life to death, and will never resurge.
--A Preface by Jiang Chuan
About the artist
Jiang Chuan was accepted by Rhode Island School of Design, RI, in 2011 but instead of going he studied graphic design in the School of Visual Arts, NY from 2010 to 2011; from 2004 to 2009, he studied in Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ with a Bachelors of Science in Civil Engineering and Science in Architecture Studies.
Selected exhibitions
2013 “Symphony and Fusion” Exhibition of Jiang Guofang and Jiang Chuan, NCPA, Beijing ; 2012 “The Dream of Light” Exhibition of Jiang Guofang and Jiang Chuan, Joy Palace, Beijing; 2012 “Art, Architecture, Forbidden City”, Kerry Hotel, ShenYang; 2011 Art Laguna 2001, Venice.
About the exhibition
Duration: March 29 – April 19, 2013
Venue: Yang Gallery in 798 Art District
Translated by Chen Peihua and edited by Sue/CAFA ART INFO.
Courtesy of the artist and Yang Gallery.
