de Sarthe is pleased to announce the opening of Xin Yunpeng’s second solo exhibition with the gallery and first solo presentation in Hong Kong, opening on Saturday, 22 September. The show features both new and old work that utilizes constructed social experiments, meticulously edited film, and simple technological manipulations. Through these works, Xin Yunpeng wrestles with latent socio-political issues and expresses a studied visual language.

The earliest work included in the show is Handsome (2011), in which the artist cleverly constructs a fabricated scenario and films himself acting within this scene to address binary political metaphors. In artworks like this one his own physical participation is not merely captured but also carefully portrayed through video.

In the largest projection of the exhibition, 20140828 (2014), the artist erects a film set and hires an actor to perform a death scene. However, after the actor “dies”, Xin Yunpeng’s never instructs him to “cut.” This asks the unsuspecting actor to navigate the strange situation on his own.

In 20130329 (2014), Left and Right, Hesitation (2017), Faucet (2018), and Military Boxing (2018) a single video is divided and played across two screens, and in Goddess (2018) permanently broken digital ink screens are put on display. These works give everyday life a new form, and mutate the common for a moment. Through this process the artworks unravel our sense of time and understanding of human experience.

In an immersive installtion, Mother (2017), the artist furthers an investigation into the vehicle of video art, pushing form to act as meaning itself. With a single fixed camera angle, he renders a detailed and vivid soundscape that permeates throughout an entire room to form a narrative around the sound of his mother’s prayers.

For more information on Xin Yunpeng and his other exhibitions, please click here.