Meaning

Beijing Inside-Out Art Museum is delighted to open a new exhibition Meaning. Meaning has been inspired by our recent experience. In the past three years, travel almost came to a complete stop. The network of art that emerged in the happy era of globalization has been put to test by physical and ideological barriers, yet it still maintains good faith and conveys news from other parts of art world to us. Through such connections, we had the opportunity to stay informed with artists around the world, many of whom worked in video art.

We conducted a comprehensive survey of artists recommended by curators active in various parts of East Asia, browsing almost all video works by artists that have emerged in East Asia, Southeast Asia, and South America in the past five years. Finally, we selected fifteen of these works by fourteen artists and art group, spanning over a decade from 2012 to the present. Their perspectives, techniques, and awareness might be different, but they all demonstrate sincerity and courage to confront with realities and care for human souls. These are works of genuine effort that can withstand the test of time.

During the three years of Covid-19, we not only suffered from the fear of disease, but also frequently experienced emotional shocks, mental fatigue and confusion. How should we understand the world that seems to have suddenly fallen into strife, division, hatred, and estrangement? Our past experience of living in an era of harmonious globalization does not prove sufficient for us to face chaos today. In this context, conspiracy theory takes over the energy of critical theory. However, the initial passion of searching for an alternative truth gradually reduced itself to a fervor for revealing and criticizing conspiracies, turning into a phenomenon of entertainment and consumption.

Conspiracy theory clamors at the price of silence of critical theory and loss of meaning. Although critical theory continues to exist in postmodernism, the importance of critical theory in intellectual history and our culture of conscience has gradually declined, under the impact of neoliberalism along with transformation in the economic order. Nothing is ever important in society. In the wave of consumerism, consumption of ideas has become part of general consumption. Conspiracy theory is thus transformed into a hermeneutic machine, a “meaning game.” One of the basic rules of these “games” dictates all happenings make sense, with no coincidences or chance. Everything that happens needs to be explained so as to reach its true meaning. In other words, it is people’s subjective interpretation, not the event itself, that bears meaning. Such a game mindset prevents people from earnestly facing the world per se. Even the process of giving meaning is regarded as a game and, thus, becomes unreliable. In this game, we lose the ability to grasp the world with certainty. 

In China, as artworks turn into consumer goods and investment objects, gradual loss of desire and ability to explore reality becomes a dominant symptom in contemporary art. Since late 1980s, the art world has endorsed a creative trend of purifying language and removing meaning. In the 1990s, the art market grew stronger, while art gradually distanced itself from politics, purging its political and social concerns and losing the ability to respond to problems in the real world. Since 2008, de-politicized and de-historicalized, contemporary art has become even weaker in terms of concerns and interventions with reality; few artists have courage, vision, and wisdom to tackle the relationship between politics and art. Of course, these phenomena stem from specific and complex factors, but we are in urgent need of creative ideas, spirits, and experiences that can serve as examples on how to engage art with reality. This is also one of the motivations for the Inside-Out Art Museum to continue selecting outstanding creative works from global contemporary art scene and presenting these diverse perspectives and ways of thinking. We are particularly grateful to the Han Nefkens Foundation. With their support, we are able to draw our references from their rich pool of artists. 

Participating artists: Korakrit Arunanondchai, Jungju An, Adrián Balseca, Musquiqui Chihying, Ekin Kee Charles, Hsu Che-Yu, Rokni Haerizadeh, Shuruq Harb, Ramin Haerizadeh, Sojung Jun, Jung Yoonsuk, Timoteus Anggawan Kusno, Gabriel Mascaro, Erkan Özgen, Hesam Rahmanian, Maya Watanabe