Guan Xiao at Antenna Space

Artist: Guan Xiao

Exhibition title: 8 Stories

Venue: Antenna Space, Shanghai, China

Date: May 16 – July 12, 2020

Photography: images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Antenna Space, Shanghai

1- Hazel

It always spins like this, at a uniform and high speed and accompanied by a low humming. The sound keeps spreading and accumulating as quantity starts to push it to roll. Day after day. Little by little, the trajectory cuts the sound off, leading to two pieces of round ground.

It rolls, to the end of the ground. There’s no peers or rivals. Day after day.

Eventually the round grounds start to spin, respectively. No longer are they a symbiont. Instead, they are three pals. One day, the ground pauses, so transiently that it’s almost undetectable. Instantly, it falls into the crack of uniform time, tumbling out of the edge which seems would roll forever. Falling, down and down.

Until one day it keeps moving on in a linear manner and the gravitation pulls (draws) out the soles.

2-Catcher

Dew drops slide down, silently, and leaves waver. Fluffy grasses also quiver, gently.

Dust starts to fly up from the ground. Pollens are everywhere. Plants try very hard to launch their seeds high up into the sky. Hairs and spores float around in the air…

Butterflies flap their wings. Crustaceans and arthropod insects waggle their tentacles. Rattlesnakes rattle their tails. Frogs swiftly wind up their legs. Antelopes stretch out their muscular legs to run and leap… Under the backdrop of a microworld, body movements seem rough and even a bit clumsy. Like a spoon churning in the sea of molecules, it constantly cuts the world apart. It is as dense as the bullets shot from a heavy machine gun into a serene lake. The irresistible sense of beauty is instantly shielded, like sound to be devoured by the water: a passivated single-channel tranquility, leaving a world teeming with clues.

However, the catcher hops within the field so skillfully that it perfectly avoids each and every crack. As a matter of fact, rather than hopping, it’s more like a ball hit back and forth, attached to a moving surface and trying its best to cooperate as if for the sake of soothing them… It fluctuates along with the wavy lines, vibrates the polylines, drops and rises the parabola… Beyond the moving part, it’s absolute stillness. In other words, it moves in a static manner. Its body becomes a bag to collect smells. It will work as long as it’s open.

3- Petting-er

He always wakes up in the middle of the night. The pub downstairs, despite its flat business, is open as always. The blue neon lights adorn his room as fancy as the sea. At such moments, he’d install one of his mechanical arms, get out of bed, open the refrigerator and take a swig of KT52. He’s never used to its weird taste. “Ew”, he grimaces and goes to the bathroom.

The tub is full of water, which looks slightly sparkling in the darkness. Like usual, he sits down by the tub, stretching out his silvery metal arm to fumble in the water. After a while he picks up a shimmering blue ball. He dries the ball carefully with a towel, takes it to the bed, spin in, and embrace the dreamland again with the ball in his arm.

4-Storm Rider

A rainy night. Dream.

Along with the damp whisperings,

there she comes.

The dreamland is split up with a swing of the sword within the lightning.

5-Game BOY

Within the cracks of the giant rock lie sighs.

When the noonday sun almost erases the shadow of minaret completely from the square, sighs start to sprout from the cracks. Along the stone wall, they flow to the ground, flowing into the long and narrow channel from the inside of the stone chamber… Eventually they slowly ooze from the exit. The sandy ground surrounding the minaret quietly gets wet. Its original wheat color gradually turns darker, as if someone is drawing a shadow for the minaret in the middle of the day. At such moments, a small cyclone could be seen from the sandy ground, which would spin around the minaret. Then, the kid shows up: bare-footed, and with a string of pink beads hung on his waist. And he wears a hat made by sundried Victoria lily. It doesn’t feel quite right to call it a hat as it is too big and covers not only his head, face, but also his neck and shoulders. Shortly afterwards, the kid starts to sing with his innocent voice: To take one to smash bones, two to hang shoes, three to tether livestock, four to tear bags, five to remove guts, six to dry jars, seven to cut off shadow, eight to fill it with river water and nine to sow seeds… When west wind blows through the village three times, ring the bell.

6-Messenger

The road has not yet started to hustlegot busy yet, and it’s even too early for the dust is too late to fly upon the ground.

Sunlight in early morning is pale golden, and In the light golden morning sun shines, that “golden egg” is glowing like thea moon. For all insects, this is just the Golmalaya in their flat world. At this time of the day, they will start eating as usual, under the sky where the sun and this Golmalaya coexist. However, unlike usual, a “click” appeared.

Gently, quietly, secretly, unobtrusivelyand hard to detect. A crack emerged on the almost perfect golden shell. After that almost perfect silence for three seconds. Three seconds of silence later, Tthe fissures crack began to increase and decrease progressively and decrease progressively move in the folds of time and space. Fast and denseintensively. Just like lightning cutting through the sky, the cracks gradually filled covered the entire Golmalaya egg.

7-Night watchman

“The weather is dry and so are things,

Watch out and not to kindle them!”

Bang, bang, bang.

It is long street that is in front of the long street. And it is long street that is behind the long street.

When the white crane takes a stride, it swings back and forth.

Tonight is a night without moonlight.

8-Lulubird walked out of delicatessen bumped into a swarm of buzzing.

The moon is hanging in the sky, the weather is pleasant. When looking from under a shadow cast by the four-story building on the other side, the moon looks a bit clearer and the sky a bit bluer than from directly under the sun. A gentle breeze blows by, the air is infused with the smell of the saguaro’ pollen. This is their flowering season; if it rains, the smell will be much stronger, then the whole town will be as if immersed in a barrel of pollen liquor, surrounded by humid air, emitting warm steam and fermenting slowly… But it has not rained for a long, long time. The newly opened shop no longer sells umbrellas. Every day is dryer than the day before.

Guan Xiao, 8 Stories, 2020, exhibition view, Antenna Space, Shanghai

Guan Xiao, Catcher, 2020 Pigmented bronze, motorcycle parts, 50(L) x 33(W) x 180(H) cm

Guan Xiao, Storm Rider, 2020 Pigmented bronze, motorcycle parts, artificial flowers, 45(L) x 45(W) x 200(H) cm

Guan Xiao, Night watcher, 2020 Pigmented bronze, motorcycle parts, oil-paper umbrella, 70(L) x 33(W) x 138(H) cm

Guan Xiao, Hazel, 2020 Pigmented bronze, porcelain, motorcycle parts, dried flowers, 110(L) x 41(W) x 150(H) cm

Guan Xiao, Game Boy, 2020 Pigmented bronze, porcelain, motorcycle parts, dried flowers, 57(L) x 33(W) x 163(H) cm

Guan Xiao, Messenger, 2020 Pigmented bronze, Lacquer, porcelain, motorcycle parts, dried flowers, 110(L) x 41(W) x 185(H) cm

Guan Xiao, Petting-er, 2020 Pigmented bronze, motorcycle parts, artificial flowers, ropes, spirals, 65(L) x 30(W) x 165(H) cm

Guan Xiao, Lulubird walked out of delicatessen bumped into a swarm of buzzing.Lulubird, 2020 Brass, pigmented brass, acrylic paint, dried flower, rope root:172x60x55cm/ cap:52x44x58cm/ 8 Big birds:41 x 22 x 6cm for each/ 8 Small birds:25 x 14 x 4cm for each

Guan Xiao, Dew, Firefly, Days, 2020 Wood panel, poly-putty base, paint, 130(L) x 117(W) x 7.5(D) cm

Guan Xiao, Sesame, Keyhole, Sunset, 2020, Wood panel, poly-putty base, paint, 120(L) x 120(W) x 7.5(D) cm

Guan Xiao, Gasp, Flushing, Dirt, 2020 Wood panel, poly-putty base, paint, 164(L) x 120(W) x 7.5(D) cm

Guan Xiao, Run, Bruise, Dust, 2020 Wood panel, poly-putty base, paint, 86(L) x 120(W) x 7.5(D) cm

Guan Xiao, Tongue, Cork, Fog, 2020 Wood panel, poly-putty base, paint, 90(L) x 90(W) x 7.5(D) cm

Guan Xiao, Blade, eclipses, lake, 2020 Wood panel, poly-putty base, paint, 160(L) x 130(W) x 7.5(D) cm

Guan Xiao, Red, Candle, Red candle, 2020, Wood panel, poly-putty base, paint, 120(L) x 120(W) x 7.5(D) cm