In November 2017, Art+ Shanghai Gallery will present a second edition of “I Will Be Your Eyes” group exhibition series by CAFA post-graduates. This edition of the show, entitled “Little Narratives” will feature the works by seven emerging artists including Chen Lin, Chen Wen, Gong Zhanlei, Lei lei, Li Yang, Tan Danwu and Wang Chengpu. The show will span a vast array of media: oil on canvas, wood sculpture, porcelain, photography and installation, it will offer a visual experience of great variety, complexity and wonderment.

            The French postmodern philosopher Jean-Francois Lyotard once said, “I shall define postmodern as the quest to doubt the meta narration.” In his mind, the meta narrative, or the grand narrative, is a narrative function to legitimate. But the age of the meta narrative is over, the context of hero, sacrifice, redemption and grand victory has been deconstructed into the chaotic starry night of the postmodernism. Therefore, the antonym term “little narrative” might give a more creative way to build knowledge, and might be a weapon to break the monopoly which grand narrative brought.

            The works of the artists seem a bit diverse at the first sight, but there is a way to see them as seven little narratives; the introspection on their own selves, and the ontological examination on art, shows a tendency of narrative from the inside. The colossal world of black and white created by the fine point pen of Gong Zhanglei, the “mischievous” atmosphere in Chen Wen’s wood of sculptures, and the subtle lines in Chen Lin’s works, all point at a rather mysterious personal experience. The artist Lei Lei tried to make a “living pot” using everyday materials, while Tan Danwu’s porcelain work is a new form inspired by the structure of porcelain making. Their art challenges the limits of material itself. Wang Chengpu’s take on sculpture and space, Li Yang’s take on photography and image making, reveal the artists’ ontological thoughts on the kind of art they are pursuing.

            Art+ Shanghai Gallery’s final exhibition of 2017 provides a stage for the seven narratives of the seven artists to engage in a new dialogue; but more importantly it invites the public to join the artists on stage and contribute to the intimate, complex but self-rewarding conversation of self-discovery and the very nature of existence.