“The Shepherd's Touch” Installation view at Tang Contemporary Art Center Seoul ©Tang Contemporary Art Center SeoulTang Contemporary Art Center Seoul will present The Shepherd’s Touch, a solo exhibition by Wu Wei (b.1981), from April 28 to June 3. It will be the artist’s second solo exhibition in Korea and will feature more than 40 works, including new works.
The exhibition will feature artist’s signature series ‘Paper-fur’ and his new series ‘Cut and Substitute,’ which offers a new perspective on the image and history of Western painting. ‘Paper-fur’ is a series of works in which paper is cut to resemble animal fur. From a distance, they appear to be sculptural representations of animal fur, but on closer inspection, they are labor-intensive works made of very thin paper. Through these works, the artist revisits the primitive thinking and violence of our ancestors.
The series ‘Cut and Substitute’ takes classical Western paintings and makes them three-dimensional, cutting the surface into various shapes. The cuts reveal various layers of form and color. Through this act, the artist transforms the sacred flatness of classical paintings into an installation and reorganizes it into a visual and tactile field, challenging the visual dictatorship of Western art history.
China-based artist Wu Wei (b.1981) explores the relationship between humanity and savagery, civilization and nature, domestication and wildness, and finds new sensations and possibilities in materials and space. The “Godly creatures” represented by beastly patterns and vividly colored paper fur appear in partial or completely different compositions, suggesting new meanings through pure and abstract formal elements.
