The Artling and Studio Gallery Present 'Re-en-vision' by Simon Song

The Artling and Studio Gallery are pleased to present 'Re-en-vision' by Simon Song at The Artling’s Shanghai private viewing space from 9 December 2020 to 17 February 2021. 'Re-en-vision' is an experiment in learning to dwell artistically. Taking repetition as both a method and metaphor, the artist sought to develop an alternative approach to social photography that dwells in and upon every day as a space of creative agency.

Producing elliptically in analogue film, Song's work involves manipulating the raw materials of the photographic apparatus and the context of photography with an eye towards, the multiplication and layering of details. This includes both the practice of repetitively photographing a space as well as the artificial process of mechanical reproduction. If repetition has the potential to strengthen the effect of the real by emphasizing the conventional social organization of details, then in using repetition to describe more than is socially adequate or to describe in a way that interrupts the everyday hierarchical organization of details, the artist looks to increase not the realism of the image but the unreal effect of the real.

In 'The Practice of Everyday Life', Michel de Certeau distinguishes between two perspectives on urban space; one, which is top down and abstracting, the view of the urban planner or the state, he defines as “strategies”; the other, which is street level and contingent, the view of the everyday user or inhabitant of urban space, he calls “tactics.” Whereas strategies emphasize hegemonic positions that are organized, “proper,” and institutional, are able to produce categories and take up space, tactics are fugitive and guerilla-like in their need to operate in a field that is not their own. Tactics are those operations where the dominated barrow or put to use the “forces alien to them,” not discourses but fleeting capacities and gestures.

About the Artist

Simon Song (b.1985), Birth name Song Hui, Born in Luoyang, Now lives and works in Shanghai. Graduated from London College of Communication (UAL) BA Photography (2013), Goldsmith (University of London) MA Photography and Urban Culture (2015). Selected Exhibition included: London College of Exhibitionist (2013); Islington Contemporary Art and Design Fair (2013); Process in Exile (2013) Art in Mind: On the Frontier (2014) Habitus (2014). Media Review included: "SE1 Through Observation" selected by FloatArt as 'Emerging Artist of the Week' (2013); selected by Wallpaper magazine, edited into Graduate Directory 2014 (2013); Interview with Raddii magazine 'Painting with light' (2018). Self-publish photo-book 'With Introspection' launched in The Bear, London (2012). From 2015 to 2018, working as the only assistant for art collective Bird Head. Since 2019, he works as a Fine art photography lecturer at Shanghai Theatre Academy.

About the Gallery

STUDIO GALLERY operates two independent entity spaces in Shanghai. Its gallery space focuses on presenting topical exhibition programs, supporting and sponsoring various non-profit critical art projects initiated by its project space, the most important of which is the artist residency program.

STUDIO GALLERY takes the artists’ actual work experience and real thoughts as its core value, supports the artist residence projects and topical exhibition programs. Through the reflection on the unbalanced environment of contemporary politics, economy and culture in the context of globalization, STUDIO GALLERY is committed to building a platform for artists to express their actual working conditions and real thoughts. By means of long-term exchanges and dialogue with international artists and curators, STUDIO GALLERY continues to initiate various topical exhibitions, research based educational programs and publications.

Exhibition Dates: 9 December 2020 - 17 February 2021
Address: 1F, building 31, No. 322, Jiaozhou Road, Shanghai
Opening Times: By Appointment Only

Browse Simon Song's available artworks here.