START Museum presents the first museum solo exhibition of artist Ao Jing, titled "Sleepy Time" on November 5, 2024. This exhibition marks the debut case study under the museum's newly initiated "Zero Degree Sculpture Project".
The "Zero Degree Sculpture Project" arises from the START MUSEUM's infinite imagination and reverence for the human sculptural system. The vision pursued by this initiative aims to transcend conventional perceptions, definitions, and historiographical judgments of sculpture. This is also one of the six important directions of START MUSEUM's long-term research projects. By positioning "zero degree" in time, initiates a research study on the future of human sculptural art, a long-term project that encompasses both breadth and depth, which will undoubtedly enhance the practical significance and creative value of this field.
The selection of Ao Jing as the inaugural exhibition for the "Zero Degree Sculpture Project" is based on the understanding that this initiative's research is still grounded in the study of past sculptural art. START MUSEUM is committed to prioritizing and engaging with contemporary sculptors who are challenging norms, fostering awareness, and transcending boundaries within their practice.
Ao Jing is a "non-standard" artist. In her works, clear academic formalism or classic art historical references are often absent. She employs materials such as iron sheets, wood, leather, plaster, scraps and other elements regarded as "discarded" as her medium. However, her creative process is not merely a reconstruction or re-empowerment of "found objects"; rather, it resembles a discovery—an exploration of the primal beauty and spatial relationships inherent in ready-made materials. Her work embodies a return to lightness, freedom, contradiction, and simplicity. In her artistic practice, the artist introduces not only material forms and characteristics but also sound and time. She allows for the sounds produced by the collisions of materials and embraces their natural decay or transformation in the process of existence—this, too, is something she anticipates. Consequently, Ao Jing’s works possess an unpredictable and ineffable quality, requiring viewers to engage deeply with the resonance between the artist and materiality within the entire spatial context. The occurrences within this interaction are marked by randomness and serendipity. The artist does not provide answers, she offers avenues for discovery.
The exhibition will feature over 10 sculptures and spatial installations created by Ao Jing over the past year, displayed at the Start Square and the R space.
