Gao Lei: The Principle

December 2011. See the entire magazine online here

White Space, Beijing

4 September – 30 October

By Iona Whittaker

The Principle occupies White Space with clinical conviction. The assembled installations and mixed-media works on canvas discharge an aura that is at once intriguing and discomfiting; it is difficult to pin down, not least because the dominant sensation is of unsolicited lightness.

The centrepiece is a white octagonal kiosk, above which hangs the black torso of a diver, rotating noiselessly with its head upturned. Inside is a stuffed macaw with vivid blue and yellow plumage that provides the only real colour in the room; on platforms interspersed with openings in the wall panels are pairs of clear acrylic feet with instruments or tools set inside them in place of bones. Here, as is true also for the other works – the larger canvases have perspectival grids drawn on them to articulate boxlike interiors; there are two square booths with peepholes and a periscope – one finds oneself always looking in on something. Against this strong division of inside and outside, the oddness of the works’ content gives way quickly to a second dichotomy: that of the in- looking subject and its ‘other’ – which entails not only what one sees, but also its creator or instigator. The smaller canvases, which marry an image with real readymade additions, such as a metal catch or a handle, imply an imperceptible schema. The sheer strangeness of the large black  booth wherein the feet and trunk of an elephantare tied to a pendulum suspended over  shards of glass and blasted with white particles at the press of a button is puzzling. Amid this nonanthropocentric environment where grids and numerical titles contend with unreal compositions, and faced with the soft, methodical coldness of the works, one is led repeatedly to ask: why?

Imprisonment, surveillance and systems of control are key to Gao Lei’s conceptual practice. The artificial containers he constructs in 2D and 3D are designed to engage the viewer without revealing their rhyme or reason; he aims to construct a metaphorical cage between the audience and the work. Elements of game – particularly in the encryption of the character for ‘prison’ seen through the doctored periscope – and a dark absurdity infusing the compositions tease one’s attention around the room. Crucially, the degree of engagement never tips into fascination or absorption, so that, as is Gao’s design, the audience is held in a sort of balance with the object. The final effect of an encounter with this conceptual situation is striking. For some, the conditions the artist has established convene on the threshold of a realisation: as one looks into the works from the stability of the gallery space, the thought arises – what if you are in fact looking out?