Liu Wei’s “Shadows” is a rigorous exercise in time-space travel. A series of heavily pigmented, depthless shapes hang on the walls of the gallery’s foyer (“Caves,” 2018) serving as oblique entry points into the main exhibition space, where the viewer encounters a cluster of studded and welded metallic structures (Shadows, 2018). Rough edges and hollowed interiors are undergirded by steel supports, revealing these industrial constructs’ two-dimensional, prop-like nature, and giving the impression that one is entering the show from backstage. Emerging on the other side of the installation, it becomes apparent that this is indeed an elaborate set. Liu employs a method akin to archeology, mining the fragmentary landscapes of Beijing for the collateral, the surplus, and using those found materials for his works. But if an archeologist’s job is to reconstruct the past from extant remains, Liu is instead committed to depicting an ever-evolving, shifting present as ahistorical and perpetually in flux. His endless reconfiguration of materials results in non-narrative tableaus that point to temporal and ideological dissonances rather than attempt any historical continuity. Working in a variety of mediums, including video, sculpture, painting, installation, and performance, Liu’s practice is notable for lacking any consistent aesthetic, and his projects are unified …

MadeIn is a cultural production company founded a year ago by the Chinese experimental artist Xu Zhen. He founded the company in an attempt to define and combine his various outputs beyond his own artwork, such as the non-profit space BizArt, China’s leading online contemporary art forum Art-Ba-Ba (which translates as “art daddy” or “art shit” depending on the tones of “ba-ba”), and his curatorial work. By branding everything he does like some Hollywood studio, he hides his own identity behind a corporate façade. But we still know it’s him behind the mask. His corporate identity has added an extra layer of signification to his work: it’s a matter of representation, of how we signify what we see. The exhibition “Don’t Hang Your Faith on the Wall” is an extension of this fundamental attitude towards representation. The show consists of installation, sculpture, and two-dimensional works each with a title taken from philosophy or the media. The original works, however, were not shown. Instead, the works were photographed and these photographs are presented as the ultimate art objects of the show. The exhibition contributes to the discussion of what constitutes an artwork as examined by Walter Benjamin in “The Work of Art …