Location: White Cube Bermondsey
February 7, 2018 - April 8, 2018
White Cube presents an exhibition of He Xiangyu at Bermondsey. This exhibition, his second with the gallery, includes the feature length film titled The Swim, produced in 2017, as well as new installation, sculpture and video. His new works develop out of the themes and experience of making The Swim and foreground the poetics and sensorial energy of material and the role of the hand in our physical relationship to landscape, history and the objects that surround us.
On entering the exhibition, viewers are presented with a video work which came out of the feature film and focuses on the swim itself. Projected in cinema scale directly on the wall it traces He’s struggle to reach North Korea, having initially been sent back by armed soldiers, successfully landing at Kurido Island on his second attempt.
The themes of resistance and survival continue in a new series of delicate sculptures made from over 248 pieces of scrap copper wire, fragments of patinated tubing and pieces of ironmongery, all obtained on a black market he discovered during filming.
He has said, ‘I’m seeking to adjust and influence people’s perception through material changes in the object.’
