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EXHIBITION ARCHITECTURE & SCENOGRAPHY
“The Enormous Space: Double Solo Exhibition of Lee Kit and Cui Jie” was on view from January 20 to April 8, 2018 at OCAT Shenzhen Exhibition Hall A and B. The exhibition showed brand new works by the two artists.
COLLECTIVE collaborated with Cui Jie on the scenography - In Exhibition Hall A, Cui Jie referenced architect Le Corbusier’s unrealized design Maison Feuter (1950). The project was laid aside when Feuter passed away. Having consulted archival documents, Cui Jie and COLLECTIVE imaginatively restored the design based on the architectural plans, abstracted some of the architectural details (such as the concrete dome structure in the similar Maison Jaoul), and placed it back into the physical space of the exhibition hall. In his modernist manifesto Vers Une Architecture published in 1923, Le Corbusier stated that “a house is a machine for living in”.
For Cui Jie, Professor Feuter’s villa is the epitome of contemporary urban construction, while also implying the limitations of bio-politique. The coincidence in which Professor Feuter’s commissioned project came to a halt due to the former’s death, is analogous to unconsciously escaping the surrealist dream of modernity.
The title of the show is taken directly from The Enormous Space, a short story by J.G. Ballard, the famed British writer born in the Shanghai’s Former Concessions, mapping the way that “space” in produced in artistic practices and unites the inner imaginary world and external reality. Weary and fearful of suburban life, the protagonist of the story decides to never set foot outdoors again, using the gate of his house as a weapon against the outside world. Ultimately, the protagonist’s almost primitive lifestyle reveals the physical outer space that increasingly compresses life itself, yet paradoxically expanding his inner world.
LOCATION: Shenzhen, China
AREA: 13,000 square feet
ARTISTS: Cui Jie 崔洁
CLIENT: OCAT, Shenzhen
COLLECTIVE TEAM: Betty Ng
COLLABORATORS: Cui Jie / Venus Lau, Artistic Director of OCAT Shenzhen / Curatorial Team OCAT Shenzhen
IMAGE CREDIT: OCAT Shenzhen