CHANEL NEXUS HALL

This exhibition juxtaposes significant new bodies of work by two pioneering Chinese artists, Feiyi Wen and Peng Ke. Both artists were born in China during the economic miracle of the 1990s, and have gone on to study, live and work abroad. Each has practices rooted in photography, yet both have expanded outward to explore different media and techniques while remaining somehow lens based. Both create images that are artistically beautiful but also embody contradictions and ambiguity.

This exhibition will display important new bodies of work by each artist. Feiyi Wen has selected photographs which relate to and expand on her recent chapters. She is using a variety of sizes, both small and large, while alternating between the printing techniques of silver gelatin and giclee. The resulting photographs will be framed in Japan and arranged in the space in accordance with the exhibition scenography, creating a sense of visual variation and exploration. Peng Ke, meanwhile, is making six wall assemblages that expand and develop her concerns from her Bay Windows works shown at the Tai Kwun Contemporary art space in Hong Kong in 2022. These will include material elements drawn from contemporary China, as well as photographs that have been pushed and manipulated in new directions.

While the connection between these two artists may not be instantly apparent, they both represent ways of looking thoughtfully at our contemporary situation, and they both play on the unique power of the image to resonate along different, contradictory registers at the same time. In this sense, they could be seen as two ends of a continuum, from the thoughtful contemplation of forms found in nature to the ambivalent embrace of the objects and typologies that convey social distinction. Of course, both positions contain their opposite—Feiyi’s seemingly natural imagery is highly controlled and edited, while Peng’s ready-mades exist as both signifiers and physical objects.

By intricately staging a dialogue between these two artists and their practices, this exhibition will not only present two significant figures in a new generation of Chinese contemporary artists. It will invite the viewer to think about their relation to their physical, social and even philosophical surroundings.