Leo Gallery and Contemporary by Angela Li jointly present, Spiritual Sensation, solo exhibition of renowned Chinese performance artist Cang Xin. Curated by Dr. Tong Pui Yin, the exhibition presents Cang Xin’s pursuit of performance art over the years through his Communication Series, Identity Exchange Series, Hotpot Series and Introject Series. Born in 1967 in Inner Mongolia, China, Cang Xin studied at Tianjin Academy of Music and Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts. Cang Xin is currently one of China’s most celebrated performance and multimedia artists.
“Performance has been a way of appealing directly to a large public, to shock audiences into reassessing their own notions of art and its relation to culture.”
- RoseLee Goldberg
In performance art, the artist conveys his message and manifests his inner identity through “Action” and “Body”. The Body, in this process a medium of artistic creation, is no longer merely an object for aesthetic appreciation, but has transformed into a “Site” where new forms are bred and concepts are expressed and completed. The amalgamation of the Site of the Body and the Site of Artwork Execution transcends physical interaction and engenders communication with the world on the metaphysical level.
Cang Xin queries his sensual experience and self-identity while putting forward his own solution; deriving from the framework of ordinary life, his works share a common form embracing both presumption and spontaneity. This forms a thread connecting all four series of works. Presumption here refers to the fact that the Sites involved in Cang Xin’s works are mostly national landmarks or prominent architecture with clear implications. Within such context, the spontaneous “daily-life actions” sublimate to art and are freshly endowed a new spirit evincing the inner identity of the artist, thus illustrate the progression from “Action” to “Perception”.
Encountering Cang Xin’s works, the audience would perceive a certain connection with the artist, allowing them to reflect and question their own identity or the physical body void of which, eventually be immersed in the search of meaning of the self within the social fabric.
