Hu Weiyi’s works involve multiple facets, and he is apt at combining various media in his works, especially photography, video and installation. The works in the exhibition were all produced this year; he regards the urban space he lives in as his main source of inspiration, and he taps into the core of the cultural development of our society with a unique approach, thus making the work turn to more tridimensional and advanced social discussions.
In this exhibition, Hu Weiyi brought everyday social scenes into his lense, including spacious buildings with half-open windows, twinkling city illuminations, aggressive traffic lights surrounded by withered tree branches, strange buildings with clothes hanging out etc.; they form ordinary yet strange urban landscapes. Landscapes that exist calmly and objectively, but are unexpectedly subjected to the forced intervention of other daily objects, such as blockage, seizure, obstruction, cleaning and so on. But these actions have no consequences, they are an end unto themselves, so that they dance with each other, like a meaningless game of vacuity. This sense of powerlessness, concomitant with nothingness, also reflects the existential state of each individual in the city. People endure a power that can integrate a rule and a standardized lifestyle, though they are not capable of suppressing their inner desire. The city is a mixture of power and desire, which makes it impossible for each living individual to be rid of the gravitational pull of these two poles. It is an exhausted urban dance in which each living object is involved, and becomes an indispensable interconnection of the hierarchy, systematically exporting itself to the same process. Hu Weiyi’s creations are based on such a tension of contradictions and tears: he presents a grotesque modern city fable by capturing the living posture of different objects in the city, thus incorporating his private desire on high-rise buildings.
Hu Weiyi, born in 1990 in Shanghai, graduated from the China Academy of Art in 2013 with a bachelor’s degree, then studied at the School of Intermedia Art, the China Academy of Art, and received a master's degree in 2016. He now lives and works in Shanghai. His work has been exhibited by numerous institutions and galleries including The Helmhaus Zürich, Yuz Museum, Power Station of Art, Long Museum, MoCA Shanghai, Guang Dong Times Museum, Minsheng Art Museum, CAFA Art Museum, Hong Kong Arts Centre, etc. He was nominated for the 2nd Art Sanya Huayu Youth Award in 2014.
