Project ShanghART WB Central, Shanghai
In this solo project, artist Yuan Zhongyu continues his ‘terraforming’ thinking methodology. Through the site-specific installations “Chairman’s Office” and “Room Service,” he condenses and projects the contemporary individual’s desire for shelter, institutional illusions, and anxiety about freedom into an intensive landscape format with distinctly Oriental characteristics.
The work “Chairman’s Office” is positioned in a semi-suspended space resembling a ‘rooftop garden’. Its structure, resembling both an office and a hotel hallway, is also reminiscent of a Chinese resort reception area constructed from
a series of materials under an assembly-line aesthetic, including tables, patchwork carpets, insulation, floor lamps, and metal paving tiles, to simulate a landscape that combines relaxation and work. Using these familiar yet fragile ready-mades, the artist reconstructs a psychological theatre that simultaneously carries attributes of power, fantasy, and rest. Influenced by Fromm’s “The Escape from Freedom,” the artist realizes that when faced with the anxiety of ‘freedom’, contemporary individuals often seek security through reliance on institutionalized structures, and the ‘office’ precisely symbolizes such a coexistence of shelter and oppression. He demystifies the position of ‘chairman’, softening the space of power through the languages of gardens, cooling mats, and lighting, to expose a workplace utopia where one can ‘take shelter from the heat’. Here, the landscape of work and the grammar of vacation intertwine into a strangely neutral space. “Room Service,” as a supporting installation, further blurs the boundaries between ‘private and public’: pulleys, acrylic, carpet, metal handrails, and other materials simulate a standardised private domain. In reality, this ‘service unit’ does not have any specific function, but only visually continues a romanticised path coding.
Together, these two installations constitute a projection of the contemporary human psychological state: a state of unease yet addiction; a yearning for escape yet a fear of freedom. It is a pavilion within a fortress, a chamber in our hearts where we shape illusions into reality. Humanity’s imaginings of institutions are not so much white lies but a profound self-loathing and an ultimate escape strategy. Our brief pauses aren’t a path forward, but rather hesitation and wandering, perhaps we’ve never left.
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