The new exhibition of APSMUSEUM, "Art Within Reach", co-hosted by Art Pioneer Studio and L+Mall Shanghai, officially opened on October 29th 2023. Produced by Robin Wong, the exhibition invites Xu Zidong as the curator, hoping to fuse contemporary art into the ordinary life with Chinese modern style.

Written by Xu Zidong

Art within Reach, seeing thoughts without words.

Art within Reach, is one of the forms of contemporary art and, therefore, possesses some basic characteristics of it.

First, in contrast to conventional realism, which holds that all things can infinitely converge to the objective reality, it does not view mimesis as the ultimate goal. What is appearance? What is reality? Contemporary art reveals different types of reality from diverse perspectives, points of view, seasons, even various times of day.

Second, contemporary art does not pursue the romanticism of the 19th century, in which a large cast of characters assembles in a passionate scene to narrate a particular historical moment. Naturally, contemporary art has its passions, but most of them are not fully expressed; similarly, its imaginations exist, but they are generally more restrained. It is what Wordsworth referred to as a “spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings recollected in tranquility”. Thus, it is more related to everyday life with less myth and legend.

Thirdly, contemporary art is also, generally speaking, less concerned with narrative. The intriguing part in contemporary art is often found in the material and the creation process rather than the image or the aesthetic effect. Therefore, contemporary art tends to be less interested in the “sublime”, less in awe of the great rivers and seas, less enamored of heroic legends, and less obsessed with overcoming great hardship and challenges. Themes such as the vicissitudes of time and life are usually presented in contemporary art more abstractly.

Art within Reach, is just a branch of contemporary art. In addition to the above-mentioned characteristics of contemporary art such as irreality, anti-romanticism, and light narrative, Art within Reach, shows less grotesque, absurd, or abstract aesthetics (deformity, grotesqueness, and abstraction are the basic characteristics of contemporary art in general). The art is more concerned with figurative details, material texture, and juxtaposition.

Art within Reach, does not necessarily have to be seen in the white cube. A few examples of the exhibits at APSMUSEUM are a pot of lilies on a chair bathed on the routine sunlight every day, a concrete cactus ornament, a “pendant” made of glass mixed with Greenland glacier rock dust, two ceramic hammers, two suitcases, and a door that hangs in the air, all of which are the works of local and foreign masters of contemporary art.

They quietly meld into our daily lives rather than narrating legends. They don't dazzle like sunshine, but quickly melt into our family ethics. The delicate line separating real life and artwork is seriously questioned by Art within Reach. From a historical perspective, this is the post-modernist trend of planarization and fragmentation, a subversion of the modernist norms of fine arts. In the context of Chinese society, it also represents a shift from grand narratives to the ideological underpinnings of day-to-day life.

From grand narratives to everyday life, that is the key phrase here.

However, APSMUSEUM's attention to the Art within Reach pieces is not necessarily out of sensitivity to the shifting of ideological trends, bute, in my opinion, probably out of a "classsical" interest in contemporary art. In college textbooks, aesthetic norms from ancient times to the present are often roughly classified into four categories: the beautiful (autumn moon over a placid lake, etc.), the sublime (the picturesque, etc.), the parody (irony, and satire), and the ugly (for example, The Stagnant Ditch by Wen Yiduo).

In general, traditional art tends to focus more on the sublime and the beautiful, whereas contemporary art is more tolerant of the ridiculous and the ugly (magical, exaggerated, grotesque, distorted, etc.). However, at least in this exhibition of APSMUSEUM, we notices that the collector has a tenacious interest in beauty, in addition to taking into account the artistic achievements, stylistic traits, and market reputation of the emerging and established artists. Contemporary art, yes, is always abstract, always challenging, always subverting the norm, but can it not, at the same time (or even in the first place) be beautiful?

Door (by Gao Weigang) naturally delineates the virtual boundary between "within reach" and "outside", yearning for everything outside the door but cherishing the world inside as well. The acrylic Armchair and Bordo Coffee Table could be deemed as the infinite approximation of symbols to physical objects, inverting our definition of art.

Further towards the inside, there seems to be a kitchen and a bathroom where we find: Individual Plant – 47, a cactus-like sculpture; hand sanitizer in Moutai bottles by Jiū Society, which happened to be an artistic prelude of the liquor’s overspreading crossover campaign; the handbag designed by Liu Wei - the luxury brand with whom the artist has cooperated prompts a homophone joke in Shanghaiese; the soap, necklace, and candles by Zhang Yitong; the cellphone by Frank Wang Yefeng; and a piece even more abstract, Petrified Seas: The Lump, by Tong Yixin, etc.

One of the most beautiful is Lilies on an Old Chair, emanating a tint of realistic style of Herman Melville. By contrast, the Rimowa Attaché by Daniel Arsham juxtaposes erosion and consumerism, foretelling the doomed modernity.

For sure, where there is “within reach”, there is “outside”. My Heart is Tender seems to echo Eileen Chang’s famous line: the flowers on the windowsill look bigger than the parade outside. Coincidently, Mary Ann Strandell and Liu Jianhua are both attentive to the “stairs”, which link the interior scene to the social fabric. The pendant-like artwork Affection by Olafur Eliasson is the highlight of this contemporary art show. Passing by the interior scenery and standing in front of the window, admiring the Kumo (Cloud) by Miya Ando and Flowing Clouds by Wu Kuan-Te, there might come the moment of epiphany: after all, if there is no “outside”, how can there be anything “within reach”.

Art within Reach, reaching thoughts and beauty without the need for narrative.

Xu Zidong

MA (East China Normal); MA (UCLA); PhD (HKU)
Vice president of Chinese Association for Theory of Literary and Art, Honorary Professor of School of Chinese at University of Hong Kong, Zijiang Chair Professor of East China Normal University, former Head of Department of Chinese at Lingnan University. Prof. Xu has published extensively on modern and contemporary Chinese literature including New Perspectives on Yu Dafu, Collective Memory: Remembering to Forget, Close Readings of Eileen Chang, and Revisiting 20th-century Chinese novels.

On October 29, 2023, the opening ceremony began at 4 pm, attracting artists, art practitioners, media, and others to participate. The President of Shanghai Sino foreign Cultural Exchange Association, Zhao Kangwei, Artist Lv Hongliang, Assistant Curator Wang Jie, and Curator Xu Zidong, delivered opening speeches successively.

Miya Ando
Daniel Arsham
Olafur Eliasson
Gao Weigang
Lv Hongliang
Liu Jianhua
Liu Wei
Jiū Society
Mary Ann Strandell
Tong Yixin
Frank WANG Yefeng
Wu Kuan-Te
Zhang Ruyi
Zhang Yitong