In the exhibition Before the Beginning and After the End..., IS A Gallery is pleased to present the new video and installation works created by Han Qian in 2023. These works continue the artist's focus on her family's history and echo her solo exhibition " Video by the Sea", currently on view at the Anaya Art Centre and the Lonely Library. In the three works at the show, the artist leads the spectator through the history and transformation of a mountain range in Hebei that stretches for over a hundred miles, as well as the perception and imagination of materiality. As this journey continues, the artist returns to her hometown of Wuhan and begins to focus on the sandbar Tianxingzhou, which looks out over WISCO.
“Words move, music moves
Only in time; but that which is only living
Can only die. Words, after speech, reach
Into the silence. Only by the form, the pattern,
Can words or music reach
The stillness, as a Chinese jar still
Moves perpetually in its stillness.
Not the stillness of the violin, while the note lasts,
Not that only, but the co-existence,
Or say that the end precedes the beginning,
And the end and the beginning were always there
Before the beginning and after the end.”
In this exhibition, IS A Gallery presents a new chapter in the artist's extended journey. Through the seemingly peaceful sandbars and rivers, lost diaries and dusty archives, and the red powder from the broken red brick walls, the invisible connections between individual experience and the natural land become visible. Perhaps mountains and rivers will disappear, cities and buildings will disappear, stories and memories will disappear, but perhaps, like things that have been carried and left behind by the forces of nature such as wind and rain, rivers and glaciers, all will reveal themselves again somewhere and someday.
The artist invites the spectators to imagine the sedimentation and reappearance of stories in different narratives, searching for a hidden presence in the traces of the past. and to explore the possible paths between the individual and nature, identity and narrative.
在《在开始之前和结束之后…》展览中，一弄画廊欣然呈现艺术家韩倩于2023年创作的影像与装置作品。这些作品延续了艺术家对自己家庭历史脉络的持续关注，并与正在阿那亚艺术中心与孤独图书馆展出的个展“海边影像”遥相呼应。
“语言，音乐，都只能
在时间中行进；但是唯有生者
才能死灭。语言，一旦说过，就归于
静寂。只有通过形式，模式，
语言或音乐才能达到
静止，正如一只中国的瓷瓶
静止不动而仍然在时间中不断前进。
当乐曲余音袅袅，那不是提琴的静止，
不只如此，而是两者共存，
或者说结束于开始，
结束和开始永远在那儿
在开始之前和结束之后。”
在彼处的三件作品中，她追溯了河北一座绵延百余里山脉的历史和更迭，以及对物质的感知与想象。随着这不断延伸的旅途，在艺术家重返故乡武汉后，她将目光聚会于与武钢遥遥相望的沙洲天兴洲之上。
而本次一弄画廊将呈现艺术家在这趟延伸旅途中的新篇章，透过看似平静的江面和沙洲、遗失的日记和尘封的档案、红色砖墙破碎后的红色粉末，个体经验与自然土地中的隐匿关联得以可见。或许山脉和河流会消失，城市和建筑会消失，故事和记忆会消失，但或许如同那些被风雨、河流冰川等自然力量搬运又遗落的事物一样，一切又将会在某个新地方显露。
艺术家邀请观众在不同的叙事中，想象故事的沉积与再现，在过往的痕迹中寻找暗藏的存在，探寻个体与自然、身份与叙事之间的可能路径。
About the Artist
Han Qian received her B.A in Accademia di belle arti di Roma, Italy and M.A in École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-arts de Paris, Paris, France.
Han Qian's work as well as reflecting on individual perception and identity memory through multiple times and the threads of history. Attempting to present her creative projects as a constant journey between the past and the present, searching for the possibility of symbiosis and dialogues with the external world and inner experience. The artist often works with her video through photographs, documents as well as writing, the act of collecting and textual writing is a recurring metaphor in her creative practice, and the search for different perceptions of source time always pulls in her writing. The artist employs various mediums such as video, installation, performance, and text. Her current work revolves around the context of her three-generational family history, examining the genealogy of natural resources, the political discourses behind this historical narrative, and the fates of the individuals who inhabited it.
