Come in Please, Whatever
09/04---10/03, 2021

“Troupe L’oeil”, a French word meaning “deceiving the eyes”, refers to a type of representation in the painting tradition that aims to deceive the viewer into believing the depiction as real. 

Morandi’s paintings still fascinate perhaps because they are in fact installations that work to conceal the artist’s words inside. Xue Ruozhe’s painting shows similar interest and traits. Known as a painter, he is also engaged with photo/video and installation. The interactive quality of his installations is dubious, for he provides minimal amount of somatic immersion but demands maximum mental concentration. If his paintings are installations that conceal expression, then perhaps his installations work as reflection and caution from a painter. 

“Come in Please, Whatever” is Xue’s third installation exhibited up to now. This fairly familiar  scene is yet impossible to make sense, trapping the viewers in an indecisive moment of vulnerability. The installation has three parts. The narrow door in C5CNM is wrapped in sections by four red banners, each revealing only one character, therefore forming vertically the line “Come in Please, Whatever”. Upon entering the space, one sees immediately "trompe l'oeil” of a banner painted directly on the floor, saying “Everything Is True”. Xue used an obvious lie to respond/reference the true statement depicted in the Belgian painter Rene Magritte’s famous paradoxical painting “This Is Not A Pipe”. His difference from Magritte is that the line is discreetly related to reality, actually saying something. A monitor displays in a loop the artist coaching his Alzheimerous grandmother to say “everything is true” and she eventually does.

The exhibition is open to public from Sep.4 to Oct.3 2021.