On May 20, 2016, Shi Jinsong’s solo exhibition “A Personal Design Show” will open in the Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei, and “A Personal Design Show” was opened to the public in the Space Station, Beijing which is as an interactive display scene of the mainland, on May 10. In the afternoon, the Space Station also launched a discussion of Shi Jinsong’s works, Zhu Zhu, Wang Jiyu, Shi Jinsong and Fu Xiaodong commonly researched and explored his history in art and aesthetic characteristics.

Entering the exhibition hall of the Space Station with the dark background and bright spotlights, it is as if one is entering a drama performance space. Sofas and chairs look like rockets, and an absurd sessile long edge are displayed, it also seems to be a site for showcasing design. The title of the exhibition is an abbreviation for “A Personal Design Fair”, but Shi Jinsong’s understanding of design ignores vision, it is a metaphysical logical question, based on different interests of specific demands related to the value within different periods in history. Each design is a mutually related power system as well as legitimate foundation, a formulation of knowledge which enters daily life, so that, moral , ethics, ideology, law, religion, politics are also designs. There are both design and being designed, and it is a fight for the right of discourse, promoting civilized wheels rolling forward.

In the logical framework of “design”, each of us has a variety of labels, such as artist, conservative, father, staff and so on, we are in a position with different identities located in different dimensions, also playing a different role, which is considered as “being designed” by the artist. The artist Shi Jinsong is a traitor or a doubter, attempting to fight against the fate of “being designed”, but unconsciously becoming the conspirator of institutional design, being mired in the self-design of “being designed”.

Shi Jinsong has been struggling to escape from the fate of “being designed” for many years, Zhu Zhu thinks he is an artist of divergent thinking and constantly analyzing mentality. From his creation we can see the self-design coincides with being designed, he constantly inverts between the public and individual, the internal mechanism. Wang Jiyu finds that his methodology is a divergence of Chinese culture, a misappropriation of Chinese cultural symbols.

The exhibition attempts to showcase, within his designs Shi has developed the practices over ten years, and the content of the exhibition is divided into three parts: Dissection and Self-Dissection, the first part explores the dissection and self-dissection as a means of exploring self-conscious daily life experiences. The artist uses the same logical language of design and manufacture and designs the truth, dissecting and self-dissecting our work, lifestyles, emotions, interests as well as mutually related values, morals and dreams, to present the structural design of power and designs of cruel and violent traits. The paradox that exists here is that cruel violence has become a new aesthetic experience. The dissection and re-outfitting of the design of these gene fragments have become a routine; Actions and Self-Incisions, exploring how different game rules directly intervene in the ecology of art and the production of relative productive forces. Personally operating, the artist attempts to dissect and share the copyright and traditional power within the arts industry, resisting the rough design of the solidification of the power system on the independent individual, attempting to achieve a wild and lively splash within the artistic existential methods without symbol or metaphor, even if their fates go hand in hand; Internal and Self-Reconstructions, the third part represents internal and self-conscious reconstructions within the gap between knowledge and power in the banal daily grind, turning oneself into a humble knife, as a means to surpass and dissect the reality that is black and white. The works employ pure material methods to design an independent spiritual home, an accurate and subtle “grayscale”, a satisfactory “free frame”. Of course, a broader exploration of new energies is a necessary inner-independent foundation. Never in history have there been greater possibilities for individuals as there are today, directly turning business into art, allowing the market to become the art museum, a new public art. The above three parts are not a linear context, but a parallel reciprocal causation, and also grow independently.

The Taipei show will be officially opened on May 20, and through a big screen will realize the corresponding interaction between the shows in Beijing and Taipei.

Text and photo by Zhang Wenzhi/CAFA ART INFO

Translated by Chen Peihua and edited by Sue/CAFA ART INFO

About the exhibition

Title: Shi Jinsong: A Personal Design Show

Main Venue: Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei (No.39, Chang-An West Road, Taipei 103)

Exhibiting Time: May 20—July 3, 2016

Beijing Venue: Space Station, No.4 Jiuxianqiao Rd，798 Art District，Beijing

Exhibiting Time: May 10—June 11, 2016

Courtesy of the artist and Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei, for further information please visit www.mocataipei.org.tw.