Yang Zhenzhong

This title coincides with Shanghai-based artist Yang Zhenzhong’s exhibition at Ikon’s Eastside space. Zhenzhong’s work is characterized by a stringent logic, often focusing on details of everyday life to convey bigger truths. It reflects a smart apprehension of the media involved – photography, video, performance, sculpture and installation – brilliantly fusing subject matter with the means of representation.

Zhenzhong’s short-circuiting of a conventional artistic itinerary, via readymades and indexical (photographic) traces, at once bypasses and problematises any idea of picture-making. Through the conflicting natures of these two media, each derives dramatic effect from a kind of realism, an understanding that we are not on the other side of a looking-glass, but rather dealing with something that has an impact on our actual experience.