SPURS Gallery is proud to announce the launch of “A Walk to Remember” a solo exhibition by artist Zheng Lu set to open on June 27th, 2020. The exhibition also marks the artist’s first solo exhibition in SPURS Gallery. Based on the new reflections provoked by the massive outbreak of COVID-19, this giant spatial installation was tailored specifically to the physical dimensions of the gallery. The surreal scene is about the “dialogue” between people, matter, and space. We also specially invited Ying Dance Theatre to perform live performances in the exhibition space on July 4.
Over the past two years, stories and events whether fortuitous or inevitable, have arbitrarily “entered” into Zheng Lu’s life. There was one instance where a packet of sugar made its way into the package containing an artwork after dismantling an exhibition. This event transformed from a random occurrence to one of life’s predestined endowments. The event itself had a sense of humor to it like in the Arabian Nights where a sweet angel lands on one’s shoulders. Utilizing the sugar that fell from heaven as a language in itself, Zheng Lu combined it with a small bridge that he encountered during a trip to Yinchuan, and turned it into a project called “How and Why”. The fortuity brought about by the destined encounter between the bridge and the sugar became an inevitable connection bestowed by fate. Not only did this project break the habits Zheng Lu developed based upon years of experience in creating sculptures, but he also transformed the language he uses concerning reality. At the same time, the work is more or less a manifested transformation of the values and methodology of the self.
One day while walking last year Zheng Lu encountered the Pingfang Village. Upon entering the shantytown that was in wretched ruins and in the process of being demolished, he found a flower and bird shop that had survived, even though the homes had been reduced to dust, the fun little aspects of life still continued. Zheng Lu bought a small fishbowl with a rocker shaped like a mountain engraved with the word “Peach Blossom Island”. Over the next few days, the little shop stayed in the back of his mind. Four days later, when he returned Pingfang Village, the shop had “disappeared” and the whereabouts of the owner had become a mystery. All of a sudden the instance of buying the fishbowl and the rock had become abnormal, one might even ask whether or not the shop ever really existed. The rock in the shop of the mountain became the only evidence of the shop’s existence. And so the story begins…
“A Walk to Remember” selected from Tao Yuanming’s Peach Blossom Spring Story. In this exhibition, Zheng Lu carries out a transformation of the physical space of the gallery. What sort of feeling will Zhenglu’s selection of materials and use language to construct a bizarre and illustrious spectacle which reveals a kind of local aesthetic and urban splendor, leave with the audience? Maybe amazement and disappointment are what life is all about. Much like the reflections of life exemplified by Wang Xizhi when he wrote in the Lan Ting Xu:
“The joy we experience here and now, in but a fleeting moment, will become a trace of our existence in history.”
Space becomes a round trip journey, each person holds with them the same destiny, lingering between proceeding and returning. The road beneath your feet becomes time, like thorns slowly crawling towards the top, with a scorching sun up above, the flowers dainty hide branches and vines concealing their piercing sharpness.
