Beyond the Painting

Shanghai, China

Art + Installation + Exhibition

Architects: Interval Architects

Year: 2019
Team: Oscar KO, Gu Yunduan, Liao Chenyang, Ma Jianxiang

Beyond the Painting is an installation work for the exhibition Urban Life Lab curated by Wallpaper* and Carpoly.

Usually, when we see a painting, we see only from its front side, since the observer always stand outside the painting. Given that there is an outside position, shouldn’t there be an inside space at the same time?

The artwork White on White (Malevich,1918) generates the sense of space by the suttle difference of two kinds of white. If the space truly exists, how would people’s experience be then?

Based on these assumptions, we designed a floating pink cubic upon a white exhibition space. We controlled the viewers’ circulation and offered them the spatial experience.

When the viewers stand in front of the installation, it looks like a two-dimentional painting. However, when the viewers step into the painting, the gap between the cubic and the space immediately transfers into a narrow corridor. The light cubic became larger and exerts stress on the viewers.

When the viewers walk around the cubic to its back, they can see various floating geometric boards inside. These little boards establish the comparision of singularity and diversity, being small and being large, as well as distribution and union, with the large cubic.

Throughout the viewers’ perception, the installation has been transformed from a two-dimentional painting to a three-dimentional space.