000 / 001
Enigma , 2022Bronze
61 × 46 x 41 cm
Mumok, Wien
© 2019 Artists Rights Society (ARS),
New York Photo © mumok Museum,
Stiftung Ludwig Wien

Text

"Enigma" is the first experimental project of Xu Space in the New Year 2022. The team creators of "Enigma" are Cai Gong, Wang Jun and Wu Mingming. Performance by Yang Manru, Yang Rui, Raymond and Zhang Lizhi. "Enigma" combines spatial theatre and performance installation.

For the opening reception, apple juice and egg rolls were the result of the information in the letter.

Cai Gong did not talk about the origin and meaning of the one hundred and fifty images in the installation.When setting up the site, he had invited the site decorators to choose four colours to represent Chongqing, and finally decided on red, yellow and green, which are brighter than the mountain city on a foggy day.

The "Enigma" team had set up a very theatrical theatre space, with Wu Mingming's wearable installation and the text, all of which seemed to suggest that the site was a mimetic and fantastical spatial context.

At the end of the reception, the participants entered, four figures behind a large red curtain in front of them, talking about the truth of "fear", then four fantastically dressed people appeared behind the curtain, their fingers running over the curtain. The music starts and the bound limbs begin to release. The curtain slides down, there is a shout and the act ends. Participants enter the installation, each with a large silver torch in hand, searching the darkness for a sheet of clues that they are missing. The clues are displayed on grey cardboard, covered by photographs of identical looking apples and eggs.

If Cai Gong were to explain, he would probably still say "it's a secret", making it difficult to say whether his intention for this exhibition is a reflection of reality? Or is it an absurd response to an absurd reality? The participants find their own answers, just as Cai Gong says: "Enigma is the starting point".

501XU ART SPACE

Return to List of Exhibition