SHANGHAI.- Longlati announced the opening of a group exhibition featuring twelve artists, inspired by the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges’ (1899-1986) poetry collection El Otro, El Mismo. Through six thematic threads, the artists engage in a rich dialogue that explores shared dimensions of discourse. Throughout the entire exhibit, the clues of identity (social roles), contradiction (synthesis and detachment), life (personal experiences), memory (familiarity), dust (migration and color), and time (the eternal moment) are interlinked.

Published in 1964, El Otro, El Mismo comprises dialogues composed at different times and in various settings, presenting a romantic poetic exploration of Borges’ conversation with his alter self, in contrast to his previous writings. Borges’ poetry explores his profound reflections on time, identity, fate, society, and history, representing a pivotal milestone in his later creative journey.

“Lo que pasó le pasó a otro.”

Influenced by an upbringing in close contact with the textile industry, Zhi Wei (b.1997 in Beijing, China) mobilizes in their works a range of fabrics (Jacquard, plaid, lace, mesh, etc) that complete and accompany their painting practice. Each painting features numerous layers of fabric that either conceal the characters or act as a background, like the strata of tinted tulle that generate striking distortions within the pictorial surfaces of their pieces. The triptych Spy Hummingbird, Butterflies, and Teaching Scissors (2022) consists of three panels. The left panel depicts a hummingbird drone used to film monarch butterflies awakening from hibernation. The central panel features handmade butterfly paper cuts sewn onto translucent lace fabric. The right panel presents the imagery of children’s teaching scissors. Through re-making industrially manufactured textiles with hands, Zhi Wei disrupts the obsolete but still prevalent dichotomies between high and low, between masculine and feminine, and between fine and craft art in the Western paradigm. In The Queer Child, or Growing Sideways in the Twentieth Century, Kathryn Bond Stockton describes childhood as an essentially queer experience, marked by the strangeness of the heteronormative breeding we all have to comply with. Zhi Wei’s whole practice – their interest in costumes, in the veiling/unveiling of the self – is imbued with a pervasive sense of nostalgia for the awareness of a state of difference one cannot yet name. Rosemarie Trockel (b.1952 in Schwerte, Germany) has been creating abstract paintings using machine-knitted wool since the 1980s. She uses these paintings to explore social issues like gender and cultural codes. Her series Keep Repeating (2014), Mine Air (2018), and Dreams Don’t Care (2022) are made using acrylic and wool on canvas. Trockel challenges the patriarchal dominance of artistic mediums by using the products of women’s domestic labor as creative materials, thus subverting traditional notions of body and identity. From a feminist perspective, she questions the restrictive cultural categories and social norms related to gender identity.

From the 1960s, conceptual artist John Baldessari (1931-2020, USA) has explored the nature of contradiction and questioned social norms. Baldessari extracted materials from found images and used high-saturation dots in a technique he called ‘technical appropriation’ to create new planar artworks. For instance, Lion Jet Truck (1988) is a vectorized image that comprises three gray acrylic photographs and digitally synthesized red and green dots. One of his early sculptures, Beethoven’s Trumpet (With Ear) #133 (2007), is a sound installation about a deaf composer. Baldessari interrogates the power of language and the essence of communication through montage-like associations. Likewise, Gao Lei (b.1980 in Changsha, China) bases his work on the treatment of standardized individual forms. In Chain of Contempt and Line of Flight (2024), the artist subjectively alters the dimensions of “standardized” industrial products to reframe artistic questions. He aims to encourage viewers to break free from conventional thinking and reassess the boundaries between space and concept. Z-772 (2013) connects aluminum bathtubs, high-pressure water hoses, and glass syringes from the 1980s in China to simulate internal liquid pressure, creating a system that teeters between stability and collapse. This work illustrates the gradient process of social structures, presenting dual forms of attack and defense, spear and shield while hinting at the latent energy and potential crises within the system.

Returning to personal experiences, Yushan Liu (b.1987 in China) and Judy Chicago (b.1940 in Chicago, USA) examine their individual visualization experiences and interactions with the social structures and historical cultures they inhabit, starting from everyday emotions. A suspended centerpiece made of fibers and horsehair from musical bows is complemented by scattered glass marbles on the floor in Liu’s installation Violently Happy Remastered (2023). Liu weaves these seemingly disparate materials into an altar that celebrates female reproductive organs. Judy Chicago’s Bigamy Hood (1965/2011) involves spray painting an automobile hood with lacquer, a technique she learned during auto school. It examines the male-dominated technological era and the masculine cultural characteristics associated with car hoods. It coincides with Chicago’s comprehensive exploration of female reproductive history and her challenge to male-dominated technological realms. Both artists’ works challenge and redefine conventional perceptions of materials, providing a personal and emotional commentary on historical and contemporary social cultures.

As artists born in the 1990s, Issy Wood (b.1993, UK) and Chen Zuo (b.1990 in Hunan, China) draw deeply from their experiences. Wood’s works are inspired by memories of her grandmother’s belongings, a source she humorously describes as making her feel like “a minor character from the Middle Ages.” She highlights how everyday objects can be magical and strange. In Between Duresses (2023), she combines the gleaming headlights and hood of a car with porcelain-like poodles and fruit tree branches to create a dreamlike scene that straddles the boundary between reality and fantasy. Chen Zuo’s work reflects a similar sense of tension. His creations are rooted in his experiences in an art district. A caretaker of the art park is depicted in a semi-reclining, semi-sitting posture in Cabbage and Golden Pearls (2021), his right hand resting in a giant pearl shell. The scattered pearls create a scene that is both stunning and slightly fragmented. The repetitive brushstrokes and vivid colors reimagine imagery reminiscent of The Birth of Venus but also offer a new interpretation of his reality. Chen Zuo engages and challenges the traces of action and visual memory left in the painting process.

In works closely connected to personal actions, Su Yu-Xin (b.1991 in Taiwan, China) uses rocks collected, processed, and crafted from the Earth’s crust as color elements. Through introspective reassembly, she depicts natural landscapes on a flat surface. Wine-dark Sea #2 (Elephant Trunk Tunnel) (2022) reflects the artist’s geological perspective by transforming her encounters with mountains and seas into a two-dimensional reconstruction. Shara Hughes (b.1981 in Atlanta, USA) creates landscapes that she describes as “fictional vistas.” Her abstract approach in New System (2020) captures the dynamism of trees, while the vivid hues in the foreground evoke a sense of fabled wonder. Hughes seems to invite viewers into a world that has been shaped and nurtured by her own reflections.

In his inner world, Wang Guangle (b.1976 in Fujian, China) views the act of creation as a mindful practice, exploring the essence of abstract language. His previous Terrazzo series primarily utilized a single-colored background and dots as the main elements. However, in Terrazzo No. 3, 2015-2024 (2024), Wang divides the canvas into eight color blocks, each with a distinct color block. The recurring observation and practice inherent to the painting process reflect the artist’s profound experience and insight of life, capturing a timeless relic of authentic existence. This repetitive approach to painting also finds resonance in About 5 (2024), a diptych by Chen Yongwei (b.1981 in Shandong, China), where the interplay of dots creates a poetic yet enigmatic atmosphere, reflecting Wang’s deep respect for time. Notably, Terrazzo No. 3 (2015-2024) is a collaborative piece that builds on Wang’s earlier work Red Phosphorus, where he invited Chen Yongwei and Chen Zihao to co-create. Initially presented in a half-finished state, the work is completed within the exhibition space, challenging the traditional notion of painting as an act of individual heroism. This collaboration allows participants to step into the artist’s shoes, experiencing the creative process from a different perspective and delving into the subtleties of artistic expression.

Borges’ El Otro, El Mismo delves into a dialectical reflection between the “I” and the “Self,” seeking a confession regarding the era and society it inhabits. The Show explores the theme of the “Other” through the works of twelve artists within a confined space, questioning the infinite connections among them. The mirrored reflections evolve into an endless interplay between reality and illusion. The exhibition raises questions as to how the “Self” and the “Other” intertwine. How do memory and the present interact? How do reality and fantasy collide? As artists explore themselves, they also respond to the voices of the “Other,” offering no definitive answers, leaving the echoes open to reinterpretation.