“Entangled, Ensnared, Entwined” features three internationally celebrated women artists of the post-70s generation: Carol Bove (b. 1971, Geneva, Switzerland; lives and works in New York), Hu Xiaoyuan (b. 1977, Harbin, China; lives and works in Beijing), and Alicja Kwade (b. 1979, Katowice, Poland; lives and works in Berlin). The exhibition reflects their nuanced insights into the sculptural forms of personal, psychological, and social attachments. It is articulated by three sub-themes that describe various dimensions of intertwining as a metaphor for living in or with nature – “Entangled Positions,” “Ensnared Beings,” and “Entwined Engagements” – through a process of a constellation that juxtaposes or counterposes works by the three artists. Echoing part of the mission of the Longlati Collection and Patronage Program, which is to represent the interests of women artists from the last century, all the works on show this time were acquired by Longlati Foundation in the past few years.

“Entangled Positions” (Part 1) presents an initial arrangement of three iconic works, each created by one of the artists. Such an ensemble brings together the sculptural vocabulary commonly found throughout their distinct practices, affected by different cultural contexts. The artists combine natural materials, specifically wood and its variants, including charcoal produced by strongly heating wood in an oxygen-starved environment, with metallic elements such as iron and copper, the hardest two known in medieval alchemy, also burning most easily in air. By shifting, unfolding, and fragmenting the existing boundaries of these solid bodies, the installation exposes the entanglement and constant exchange with the organic or cosmic milieus living on, in, and around us. It reveals yet unknown flows of movement, intelligence, and communication towards an increase in entropy. Bove’s Relationship (2017) features a piece of driftwood with a hole that strikes a perfect balance with the support of a slender steel bar. Wood-Purlin No.7 (2018) is a typical example of displacement applied by Hu, in which painted raw silk affixed to a wooden block still renders the grain. Kwade also explores the idea of displacement, as the two vis-à-vis horns in Hypothetisches Gebilde (2018) are chocked up with a certain amount of black carbide, creating a sense of disorientation in the space.

“Ensnared Beings” (Part 2) draws inspiration from the Heideggerian notion of verfallen (ensnarement), which relates to the predominant patterns of behavior that we fall into or the status of entrapment in mundaneness. It incorporates four reductive works whose emotive biomorphic or zoomorphic intent provides the impetus for their forceful and energized sculptural vitality, while suggesting an inherent tension between the living flesh and its subtle spirit. In this vein, Bove’s rusted I-beam structure entitled Cow Watched By Argus (2013) resembles a reptile crawling on the ground, making Greek mythology a metaphor for the plight of the alienated individual and the end of the man-made world. Hu names her work Ant Bone No.2 (2015) by creating a new coined word, expanding its literariness, thus highlighting its profound ambivalence. In 5 days 11 hours (2017) and Causal Emergence (June 2019) (2019), Alicja Kwade contributed a number of brass clock hands synchronised to be placed in sequence to visualise the concept of elapse, each representing an instant.

The last five works on display, coined as “Entwined Engagements” (Part 3), signify the spatial uncertainty of the decentred globe contrasted with local coherence during the pandemic days. However, their tensions and complexities are productive in generating positive relationships with the unknowability of what the immediate future may hold. For example, Bove and Kwade both challenge the geometric principle in modern sculpture by subverting the dialectics of the middle/centre and the circumference to undermine the sense of a cavernous interior, which might be understood metaphorically as today’s physical circumstance. In S.O.S (2016), Hairpin (2018), and The First Braid (2019), Bove combines crumpled stainless-steel tubing with a solid circular disk in black. It is hard to tell whether the former envelops the latter or the latter embraces the former. Kwade’s Hypothetisches Gebilde (2018) constitutes a self-contained piping system with trumpet/funnel-shaped endings where a small amount of minerals is placed aside as a sign of travel through the veil of time, which suggests a nonlinear evolution of things. On the contrary, Hu liberates a bunch of hand tools usually deemed as found objects from a slavish adherence to the experience of “using,” yet depicting the trace of “being used” on the very surface to emphasise the significance of “using” in the past. In Five Bodies II (2018), such assemblage (versammlung) seems to be disordered or randomised; however, it is self-sufficient to hold (bergen) and to open.

Artists: Carol Bove, Hu Xiaoyuan, Alicja Kwade

Venue: Longlati Foundation, Shanghai

Dates: 2023.3.3–8.15