The Majesty of the Moment

“The Majesty of the Moment”, this is an opinion on the American modern photographer Alfred Stieglitz, his city and his subject New York in the book Aisthesis: Scènes du Régime Esthétique de L’art written by Rancière. Rancière’s argument originated in a commentary on Stiglitz in 1921. So far, exactly one hundred years.

Rancière believes that Stiglitz’s artistic techniques condense the conquest, experience, and rhythm of a civilization. It also allows skyscrapers to rise above the city, and allows the tail smoke of trains and ships to disperse into the sky.

Therefore, the American spirit advocated by Stiglitz and Schopenhauer’s compassion (for the critics) are related… The subject matter is a metaphor of a world, a special moment that condenses the rapidness and slowness of this world…

Completely accidentally, this sentence and XU ZHEN^®‘s new exhibition coincided a century later. Although the artistic medium language and the context used by XU ZHEN^® are different from those of Stiglitz, although these are two sets of aesthetic systems, in XU ZHEN^®‘s new works, we also feel the pure form and the endless historicality which is contained in every moment of time, every folds of sculpture parts and brushstrokes of the painting. The “Passion” series of paintings on the wall allude to weight, and the “Evolution” series of sculptures on the ground are metaphors of time. Such a naming and arrangement seems to have intentionally reversed the order, but at the same time they are organically integrated. At this time, the huge sculptures on the ground seem to express weight, while the “abstract” paintings on the wall seem to represent time. Lightness and heaviness, activity and stillness, superficiality and stateliness, instantaneity and eternality… switch and cycle back and forth here. It is undoubtedly a deep inspection and measurement of both our mental conditions and the symptoms of the contemporary era when staying here.