［Press Release]

ifa gallery • shanghai

16 march – 18 june 2014

vernissage on on saturday 15 march, 5-9pm

ifa gallery, following 7 years presence in Shanghai, and the recent establishment of a gallery space in Brussels, opens a new space in Shanghai, in the vibrant district of Jin’An.

ifa gallery • shanghai is very glad to exhibit the works of Xu Zhe and Xu Cheng, two young talented Chinese artists.

Both have exhibited locally and internationally and are amongst the generation of artists whom have been living abroad, and whom use technology to reflect upon our contemporary world.

ERROR/LOGIC is an interpretation of our contemporary society in a technologic mutation where we experience an unlimited access to information, ideas, and images. It is a world where we travel easily to the other side of the globe for a few days to gain access to other cultures. It is a world where a large number of people can be a public editor, a photographer, or a film director given the possibility to show their creations, their point of view to potentially 40% of the entire global population. It is a world of automation now taking a large part of our society, where our home is expected be a fully programmed system, to have it as it is supposed to be, with a fridge connected to our supplier, or a warm bath made ready automatically after a long day of work.

But what is supposed to be or not to be?

Xu Zhe makes a humoristic-programmed hand-made toy which makes some repeated gesture in making a painting. The paintings look identical but they are all different as they depend on uncontrolled environmental factors. This automation artwork demonstrates that nothing is as supposed to be, although we programmed it to be so.

Xu Cheng, a sound artist, exhibits some funny plush toys, which seem to dance and sing at random, but their behaviour has been carefully programmed to be this way. Events might seem accidental or coincidental, but they are made to be that way. How often do we let ourselves believe that events and things are accidental or coincidental while in reality they have been designed in this way?

This exhibition is not only a dialogue between those two artists, but also an interrogative interaction between programmed artworks.