Fluctuating Selection—Uncertain Future
"Repetition" becomes the process of deciding meaning and repeating history in the slow and repeated collection process, as if linking together the delicate "paths" like fine spider silk.
Words by Wei Jing
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Sining Zhu's solo show "Fluctuating Selection- Uncertain Future" at 4C Gallery features five pieces from various times. In terms of theme range, the main content of her works is undeniably vast, embracing and alluding to the problems frequently discussed in contemporary society in different contexts. During the visiting experience, people are immersed in installations, movies, performances, sounds, and other multimedia. However, rather than the audience becoming a part of a cross-media artistic show, it is more like an anthropological art expression as she practices.
Anthropology usually studies human civilizations and investigates the essence of human existence by examining the development of various social, political, economic, and religious systems, among other things, in multiple situations. To depict an authentic and dynamic relationship in the dual sociological context of postmodernity and fluid modernity construction, we must actively and repeatedly ponder and explore the ripples of each subtle aspect of life and the infinite possibilities and polysemy of connections beyond the ripples. Sining translates this basic logic into a study and collection-based creative process. "Repetition" becomes the process of deciding meaning and repeating history in the slow and repeated collection process, as if linking together the delicate "paths" like fine spider silk. As a result, the subtle existence is constantly detected.
"Its manifestations, possible doubts, and outcomes are strikingly comparable to "every subtle event in daily life" in this dynamic, adaptive, and complex environment with numerous influencing elements."
Sining's work transcends anthropological research and is rich in artistry because reproduction and authenticity are no longer the only components of her work. Her work is neither about interpretation nor anti-interpretation. It is alive at their core, and she prefers to focus on the numerous connections that underpin the meaning of events rather than on "textual readings" of specific cultural slices. They are only renewed (or flow) when they are linked to the fresh, subtle threads of each person's life experience.
Regarding Sining's solo exhibition, the concept of biology, specifically "fluctuating selection" of natural selection, which refers to the evolution and change of animals and plants within a relatively short evolutionary time based on the most suitable survival principles, was introduced. The concept means that the world mixes and generates in ways that defy human comprehension, with each link nestled with limitless connections, possibilities, polysemy, and ambiguity waiting to be discovered. Thus, the exhibition theme is consistent with her works' philosophical concepts and creative logic.
"What Are We Shedding?" (2021) by Sining Zhu collects used face masks from different people and transforms them into transparent clothes resembling human skin, creating an illusion of human skin shedding. "The Another Death" (2022) serves as an extension of this work, where the artist wears one of the "skins" and lies quietly in a transparent acrylic container, waiting to be moistened by the water diluted from the soaked skin clothes suspended above, then gradually melting and disappearing in the container, waiting for the final evaporation. Masks as symbols of consumerism and dresses as an extension establish a hierarchical and aesthetic hegemony. The identification of individuals and the shaping of consciousness are helplessly submerged in the collective's subliminal influence.
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Starting with "Wash My Body" (2023), Sining seems to have found a way to connect her works to more extensive and broader contexts. When the artist wears a "human body sculpture" accompanied by a beach sunset, she tightly binds her relationship with the entire nature (universe) in a "real" way. In this immersive and genuine feeling of the "sense of belonging" of every tremor, Sining has opened up a consciousness of moving away from anthropocentrism, moving away from retrospectives centered on memory, and ending based on purpose.
Under the mining techniques and evidential "scientific rationality" discourse system, "Searching for Preopercular Bone" (2023) examines the issues of human industry, the dispersion and migration of biological groups, and some problems brought on by globalization in a posthumanist context. Its manifestations, possible doubts, and outcomes are strikingly comparable to "every subtle event in daily life" in this dynamic, adaptive, and complex environment with numerous influencing elements. It is difficult to contest that this "fluctuating selection" of natural selection indicates a decision that does not include human interference. The global or micro perspective, the proper temporal scale, the change's cycles or endpoints—all of these questions are threads in the many universe panoramas, revealing and interwoven their relationships are intricate.
Although Sining and her works continue the narrative and reflection typical of post-war capitalism, they demonstrate a conflict beyond two-dimensional space and linear history. Unrelated participation or a far-off stare creates space. This vibrant sensibility and participation go beyond the "new sensibility" Sontag described, abandoning the aesthetic experience of the "gaze" with the intention of appreciation and moving beyond concerns with the seriousness and elegance of art or whether it is well-liked by the general public. Instead, it immerses itself in the ever-expanding anthropological panorama, "connecting similar questions in different contexts" and creating a larger intellectual space in the face of uncertainty.
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The artist hollows out cotton jackets gathered from San Francisco's renowned Chinatown, fills them with common Chinese spices, and lays them in a corner coated in ash in the piece "Corner" (2023), like a small forgotten space in this solo exhibition. There are connections between geography, history, immigration, memory, consumption, multiculturalism, individual identity, storytelling, and other factors. In this ways, viewers connect to Sining's "ethnographic map" by making the space apparent.
About Artist
Sining Zhu, (b.1999 Beijing, China) is an interdisciplinary artist who works with installation, video, performance, sound, and multimedia. She lives in Los Angeles and studies for an MFA in Fine Arts at the California Institute of Arts. Her practice focuses on the complicated relationship and cognition of identity between the self and others and the interaction and separation of the individual and the group. Her enthusiastic roots in research and collective behavior, which she uses to explore contemporary art practice and reveal indisputable facts and hidden delicate sorrow in the social environment. By overlaying everyday, personal, reminiscent objects and accumulating new contexts and meanings to awaken collective resonance.
Education Background
M.F.A California Institute of the Arts, Santa Clarita, CA
B.F.A School of Visual Arts, New York, NY