Conversation with the Stone
ShanghART Gallery
Shanghai
Jul 13–Aug 31, 2025

Summer group shows are hit or miss—often a last gasp after a full season of carefully orchestrated exhibitions and the peripatetic global circuit of art fairs. But on rare occasions, they can offer refreshing and inventive curatorial ideas, not only showcasing young talent but also striving for something we might deem “poetic.”

At ShanghART West Bund Central, the exhibition “Conversation with the Stone,” its title and curatorial theme inspired by a poem by Nobel laureate Wisława Szymborska (1923–2012), showcased works by 14 artists across various mediums—painting, sculpture, installation, photography, and video. The show coincided with the gallery’s first anniversary in its new space, which opened last August following the demolition of its original West Bund location. Now in closer proximity to The Long Museum, the new gallery, designed by architectural firm GOA, features a 700-square-meter underground exhibition space and a 500-square-meter reception and mezzanine.

Presented in the larger space, the exhibition featured 14 artists, three of which are formally represented by the gallery: Singaporean Indonesian multidisciplinary artist Boedi Widjaja, who exhibited his three-channel, 31-minute video Path. 14, The River Flows Two Ways (2023) alongside River Rock, Tree Rock, and Rain Rock (all 2023), three works featuring ink rubbings of geological surfaces on handwoven silk; Chinese artist Zhou Zixi, who showed four paintings from his Flow series (2019–22); and young Chinese sculptor Su Chang, whose minimalist works of gypsum, linen, and stone resemble relic-like fragments. While somewhat obligatory, these works resonated well with the curators’ assertion of stone not only as a medium or relic but as witness: “imbued with the artist’s subjective awareness, it seems to respond.” In lieu of a typical wall text, Szymborska’s poem was printed in Chinese and English and presented as two long hanging scrolls, suspended along the spiral stairway leading to the exhibition space.

Three paintings by Shanghai-based artist Shi Zhiying stood out. Known for her stark monochromatic oil depictions of uniform vistas, seascapes, sand, grass, and stones, Shi’s recent works introduced luminous pastel hues, augmented by subtle illusions of reflective surfaces. Among the three paintings on view, Gem & Mirror No.11 (2022), measuring 130 by 180 centimeters, was especially striking and sumptuous.

Nearby, works by Chinese artist Yoyo were of interest for their abject, throwaway appearance. Presented as a mini diorama replicating an artist’s studio, the installation The Covered Part of the Front Shell A (2018–22) combined various elements: a haphazardly painted table, a pot-scrubbing ball, barite powder, acrylic, wood, iron, polyethylene film, oil pastel, oil paint, and glass. Yoyo’s works are messy, as if picked straight from a trash heap, but strangely effective. One could perhaps consider them an updated take on the Italian Arte Povera movement from the late 1960s and ’70s.

Two other works were particularly noteworthy. Li Yongzheng’s expansive carpet of pink Himalayan salt, laid before a wall of meticulously cast and hollowed bricks made of the same material, exemplifies the artist’s excellent, rigorous post-minimalist aesthetic focused on materiality, repetition, and process. Tang Jie’s Stone Story (2015), a motion-activated installation, features an old drum measuring two by two meters laid flat and dramatically spotlighted. Above it, stones of various shapes and sizes were suspended from wires, mechanically ascending and descending onto the drum’s surface to create gentle, meditative rhythms. The softly percussive nature of the work brought another “voice” to the exhibition, suggesting that each stone may hold an enigmatic history or secret life. But perhaps we should let Szymborska have the last word:

                                    I knock at the stone’s front door.
                                    “It’s only me, let me come in.
                                    I don’t seek refuge for eternity.
                                    I’m not unhappy.
                                    I’m not homeless.
                                    My world is worth returning to.
                                    I’ll enter and exit empty-handed.
                                    And my proof I was there
                                    will be only words,
                                    which no one will believe.”

Arthur Solway is the author of two collections of poetry, Friday Night, Shanghai (Finishing Line Press, 2023) and Siddhartha On Fire (Swan Scythe Press, 2023). He is ArtAsiaPacific’s San Francisco desk editor.