Wang Xuan “The Story of the Dream”
2025.08.30 - 2025.10.19
Artist: Wang Xuan

Once, an art collector, upon receiving Wang Xuan's painting, emailed the gallery with an inquiry. Despite having seen images of the work beforehand and grasping a basic understanding of the artist's creative approach, he couldn't shake off the suspicion that the physical piece might be a printed copy. This incident precisely encapsulates Wang Xuan's unique painterly concept, even though the technical mastery to "deceive the eye" ceased to be an artistic pursuit after modernism's upheaval—such impulses even carry a reactionary whiff, suggesting regressive taste. Yet from a broader perspective, modes of representation retain their validity within postmodern/contemporary discourse. In the recent past, our participatory reform of every artistic medium has incorporated the viewer's gaze into the work itself as a constitutive element. This experiential model subverts traditional art's demand for the "suspension of disbelief," insisting instead that artistic engagement must stem from genuine volition—the viewer should take mindful steps crossing boundaries between art and reality, rather than premeditated or directed. True interaction implies an epiphany that only arrives in hindsight—this constitutes the crux of contemporary practice. "Transparency," a deceptive anti-strategy, preconditions for such experience. As boundaries between artwork and reality blur, the more "transparent" the presentation, the deeper the viewer's cognitive hesitation grows, culminating in complete ambivalence. Real experience inevitably comes at the cost of comprehension—art history's ultimate exempl......