“Allongé – Out of Reach” Installation view at Perrotin Dosan Park ©PerrotinFrom July 4 to August 19, Perrotin Dosan Park presents Allongé – Out of Reach, a solo exhibition by Berlin-based Chinese artist Xiyao Wang (b. 1992). Xiyao Wang’s work is based on her understanding of Eastern and Western philosophy and culture, as well as her appreciation of dance, especially ballet. The artist produces large-scale, immersive paintings that use the gestures of the body to create the lines of paintings.
The title of the exhibition, ‘allongé’ refers to the way ballet dancers elongate their arms at the beginning or end of a moment, extending their posture to focus on the continuity of the lines their bodies create. It is the step that prepares the body for the next movement before the dance begins in earnest. The artist adopts ‘allongé’ as her painterly methodology, linking it to the moment just before the hand touches the canvas. In this exhibition, Xiyao Wang produces large-scale abstractions that extend her exploration of expression the embodied subjectivity to concepts of temporality and mobility, form and void, and substance and spirit. Her paintings in the exhibition are composed of black charcoal lines, which are layered with colorful oil sticks. Even the blank space of the canvas is used as a component of the work, the artist allows the lines to interact with the blank space. This is like the extension of the dancer’s body into the surrounding space through the ‘allongé’.
In this second solo exhibition of Xiyao Wang’s work at Perrotin, we will be able to see paintings that capture the gestures of dance.
