An End Has a Start

An End Has a Start is a continuous cycle of opposite states, a revolving loop of moments from the Mobius strip, a representation of the repetition of the printmaking process, and the title of Yiyi Wang’s first solo exhibition with theBlanc Gallery.

An End Has a Start is an art installation composed of 25 prints. Yiyi Wang tries to use the repetitiveness of printmaking as an independent language, allowing this work to break away from the size and display prescriptionsof traditional printmaking. By hanging the prints in a 5 x 5 matrix, she turns the two dimensional prints into a three dimensional spatial installation. This series depicts images of a Mobius strip, produced through deconstructionand observation of its geometry from different angles. An installed video includes the moving image of these 25 views in order. If the viewer immerses themselves in this array of prints, they will discover that they are seeing the deconstructed subject from an invisible track and meandering on a single Mobius strip. By breaking the fourth wall, Yiyi Wang builds a latent construct of time and space of the cyclic process that blurs the boundary between print and reality.

In this high-tech era, Yiyi Wang chooses to look for primitive, low-tech artistic expression, contemplating the relativism of the ideas of past, present, and future. Ancient printmaking technology was once considered to have belonged to the future, just as technology now and in the future is due one day to become ancient relics, on and on. Yiyi Wang tried to escape from quotidian situations, to find a balance between opposing forces, achieving a calm state of mind through the abstract nature of the physical world. This allowed her to both place her work in relationship with mental and bodily anxiety about the origin of life and other issues while creating a sense of neutrality.

“An End Has a Start” project will circulate indefinitely in countless subsequent printings, onwards through time.

Artist

Yiyi Wang is a New York-based artist with a Bachelor’s degree from Pratt Institute. She is currently pursuing her MFA in Printmaking at the Rhode Island School of Design. Her work combines traditional and contemporary techniques to explore themes of cultural identity and the dynamic interplay of mediums and expression.

Curator

Yiyao Tang (b.1996 in Wenzhou, China) is an immigrant artist working across mediums of video, projection, and installation to explore how social and political systems are embedded within images and objects. She holds an MA from Harvard University and BFA from Pratt Institute. Using personal devices and inventive setups, Tang constructs and challenges ideas on freedom, trauma, justice, democracy, otherness, memory and monuments. Her setups play the role of both object and subject of her creations, exploring multiple perspectives that often lead to unpredictable outcomes. Recent works have examined digital media, preservation, and extinction as subjects embedded in her practice and made visible in sculpture, video and found objects. More than just an archival account, Tang’s approach approximates archaeology, uncovering layer upon layer of evidence of our own contemporary artifacts, collective memories, and climactic traumas.