Ideal Person
A+ Contemporary, Shanghai
A+ Contemporary is pleased to announce the opening of Chen Xi’s soloexhibition “Ideal Person” on March 23rd. This is the second solo exhibition ofChen Xi at A+ Contemporary. This exhibition follows the logic trajectory ofChen Xi’s previous works, and his interests in the painting theories,geometric principles and spatial composition. Chen Xi is used to embed hispersonal experiences and emotive states into his practices and compositionframe, as well as to use fictional tales and interesting narrative forms tounveil his observations and thoughts towards his surrounding environment.“Sleepwalking through the Walk Simulators”, a 79-minute animation is thecore of this exhibition. In this work, Chen Xi uses the most extreme plot toenhance and elevate our life which has become accustomed to us. Themultiple characters in the work seem to be irrelevant with the larger storyline, yet in fact, they unfold a continuous cycle where each characterconnects, associates and reinforces with one another with their successive,slowly forwarding paces. While the events that are happening in thisnarrative realm congeal and merge outside, detaching from the life cycle ofeach individual character, from which no character could foresee andenvisage the unpredictable incidents and causes followed. All thesecharacters therefore unavoidably confront their (chosen) daily routines, aswell as experience the impermanence of life on their own, however, a largeryet inexorable system lies silently and co-inhabits within this labyrinth ofchoices. In between the intense and vigorous narrative plots, Chen Xi alsointerweaves several clips where viewers are pulled away from the sphere ofthis narrative tale, standing aside from the plot as the third party, to view,ponder and conclude each event that happened in the previous episodes.One thing worth noting is that, the accumulative wounds/damages oncharacters’ bodies will not be recovered or restored, from which they alludeto the psychological and personal trauma of our own, implying thesecharacters live within the realm of reality, not the sphere of the fictionalgaming.
