With planetary consciousness in view, the artworks in Space Oddity weave together an expansive panorama of the universe. Their works are a reflection on the operational mechanisms of our society and mark a new struggle against the frustrations of our limited knowledge.
The group show brings together 12 Chinese and international artists and groups who adopt a planetary perspective in their practice, including Alan Bogana, Cao Shu, Yin-Ju Chen, Chen Zhe, Chu Yun, Ohlsson/Dit-Cilinn, Hu Wei, Shao Chun, Anton Vidokle, Yu Bogong, Zhou Junsheng, and Zhang Wenxin/Chen Xin.
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The age of this pair of marble chairs predates mankind by hundreds of thousands of years and will be here long after we have gone. A flickering human-shaped skull, with engraved sutures based on animal bones, is placed on one chair, while the opposing chair invites the audience to sit and ponder.
The work is part of the artist's ongoing project A Slow Remembering of A Long Forgetting, which emphasizes the intertwining of our collective and individual destiny’s. Throughout the project, we are reminded of human’s ancient struggles yet very recent existence in the scope of geological time. While the human species in the scope of time occupies a mere blip on the timeline of the universe, we import so much on the minute details of life and tend to overlook that we not only belong to the universe but to each other as well.
