Nine Journeys Through Time

Yuz Museum Shanghai
July 3rd, 2019 – October 7th, 2019

The microscopic reality placed before us by Aaajiao, the zoomorphic geometries of Iris van Herpen. The world altered by the mysterious chimera of Andrea Anastasio and the thick spider webs of Chiharu Shiota. Zeitguised’s digital anamorphosis, the electronic universe of Caterina Barbieri and her synthesiser. The time in the fourth dimension, one beyond our experience and comprehension, as evoked by Li Shurui. The spatial and temporal references of the architecture enveloping the exhibition and which vanish in the room of Krijn de Koning but also the ephemeral performative space by Alex Schweder that envelops the viewer into a soft hug of intimacy and entrapment.

“Nine Journeys Through Time” is an exhibition organized by Yuz Museum together with Alcantara, and evolves from the eponymous show previously presented in the Apartment of the Prince, Royal Palace in Milan, conceived and co-curated by Davide Quadrio and Massimo Torrigiani in 2018.

“Nine Journeys Through Time” offers an exceptional combination of talents, 9 artistic approaches are brought together, expressing their visions through 9 projects in various artistic languages. From the transfiguration of painting into fashion, from digital design to music, they all draw inspiration from the specifics of a unique medium: Alcantara, analyzing all its various declinations and potential, exploring its invention and production processes, working with technicians and experts, be it along independent paths or through innovative collaboration projects.

The 9 artists are: Aaajiao, Andrea Anastasio, Caterina Barbieri, Krijn de Koning, Li Shurui, Alex Schweder, Chiharu Shiota, Iris van Herpen, and Zeitguised.

Each of them has come up with a site-specific work, initially dialoguing with the Royal Palace in Milan, itself a setting charged with great creative energy: a launch pad for journeys ranging from anomalous science laboratories, anacondas, mutations, sinusoids, oracular apparitions, twisting from the natural to the artificial and back again, psychedelic corridors and quirky metronomes. All this energy is mutated and transformed in the main exhibition hall of Yuz Museum in Shanghai.

Yuz Museum’s “Nine Journeys Through Time” is a development and includes new configurations of the works by Krijn De Koning, Chiharu Shiota and Aaajiao and introduces a new artist into the exhibition: Alex Schweder, an artist based in New York who adds a performative element into the dynamic of the show.

In this process of “moving” the show from Milan to Shanghai, all the precedent stories and complex interactions between the Apartment of the Prince and the artworks, will be narrated in a suspended time and space of an open space.

The big thread that keep the works together is first of all ‘time’ as it is the result of the dialogue between artists and material, artists and places, artists and curators. In this case, the original effect that Apartment of the Prince created, led the artists to a reflection on the various dimensions of time: on ‘our’ time, the everyday, practical and brief dimension, opposed (or complementary) to ‘scientific time’, dilated and imperceptible. Yuz Museum’s experience will add to that a strong feeling of space and architecture where the connections between the artworks and the art pieces will be highly performative and interactive, leaving to the public the pleasure of experiencing all the above in a very ludic and profound way. The work of Alex Schweder both spatial and performative surely will add into this scheme of the curatorial change in perspective. When the artworks are separated from the context they initiated, and entering the soaring museum great hall reconstructed on an old hangar, with white walls and gray flooring, the minimalist and open exhibition design will focus on the artworks themselves, opening up a new dialogue with time and space.

Along with the theme of time and thank to the shift of space and time (Milan versus Shanghai, time versus architecture), various perspectives emerge in the exhibition showing the relationship between natural and artificial, between products and nature, between us humans and that which is different from us. This is what gives that ‘research center’ feel to it all. This exhibition not only aims at how artists explore and cross the boundaries of art, but also allows spectators to keep thinking about the factors that influence the artists’ creations. Additionally, more questions will arise such as how cross-disciplinary cooperation is expanding the possibilities of artistic creation, and what does the most authentic art look like.

“Nine Journeys Through Time” is designed to provide an experiential journey, one to be undertaken by spirits willing to let themselves be enveloped in a sense of wonder. Each setting turns out to be a surprise that projects us into a sequence of diverse and enthralling space-time dimensions. A sophisticated experience, at times abstract yet never out of reach, which buffers us between changing worlds and startling aesthetic experiences.