A handcrafted wooden frame encasing the lithograph of a stone, Refined Still Life #1 is the result of Yu Ji’s (b.1985, Shanghai) quest, when she set out four years ago to look for a rock that bears no trace of human activity on its surfaces. She found her rock in suburban Beijing and transported it all the way back to her studio in Shanghai, where it now sits. Fascinated by the concept of carving the image of a rock out of another rock, Yu Ji attempted to create a lithograph of her rock. Refined Still Life #1 can indeed be read as one artist’s attempt to make sense of her relationship with the land, its resources above and below ground, and an exploration of what creative faculties can be activated in such inquiries.
Yu Ji’s practice is anchored in an interest in and sensibility of temporality and materiality. Her works, which often explore the transformative possibilities of labor-intensive processes, find form across mediums: from sculptures, to installation, video, and performance. In the ongoing series titled Flesh in Stone (2012–ongoing) the artist asked workers from a factory nearby to model, with the proviso that she would not draw or sculpt during the live sitting. During the long sitting process the models were sometimes pushed to the brink of boredom, while some achieved a status of meditative calm. The plaster figures of the series were created after the sitting, from the artist’s memory.
Yu Ji also runs am Art Space (a GB11 Fellow), an independent, non-profit space in Shanghai. Founded in 2008, am exists outside of the traditional art system and commercial models, and aims at making space and nurturing abilities for reflection, examination, and creative engagement outside of the increasingly regularized contemporary art system. MW
self-presentation:
My practice mainly deals with sculptures and installations, and also involves performance and video. Reading, writing, and traveling have been important parts of my work. The meaning of artistic creation, for me, lies in asking questions, in being uncompromising, in facing myself as much as facing the external world. I have worked on residency projects in recent years, collaborated with different people and different spaces, which enabled me to have a multi-faceted process of thinking in explosive, on-the-spot situations, in body-against-body confrontations, while simultaneously controlling and exposing myself to the fragility of what happens instantaneously on the stage.
I am a co-founder of AM Art Space in Shanghai, which opened in 2008, and I act as its curator. A “room for introspection,” AM Art Space has served artists as a source of creative inspiration and as a material medium for the realization of creations, using the execution of projects to discuss the relationships between public spaces, artists, and the public.
