Wang Gongxin: In-Between

White Cube presents ‘In-Between’, the first solo exhibition in London by Chinese artist Wang Gongxin in which the artist expands on the central thesis of Japanese writer Tanizaki Junichiro’s 1933 essay ‘In Praise of Shadows’. In this influential text, the author argued that light is used differently in the East and West: Western cultures looking for illumination and clarity; East Asian cultures embracing shadow and subtlety. Exploring cultural connections between light and mindsets, Wang also interrogates Japanese post-war architect Kurokawa Kisho’s concept of ‘grey space’, where distinctions between inside and outside, artificial and natural, and individual and collective are blurred.

Born in 1960 in Beijing, Wang is a pioneering video and media artist, one of the first in China to use digital special effects who, in 1999, founded Loft, the earliest media art space in China.

The series of 13 multimedia works presented in this exhibition reflect Wang’s ongoing investigation of the differences between his native China and the United States.