About the work:

The work was created at the end of the artist’s residency at CCA Berlin in spring 2023, taking a corner of space from her solo exhibition as backdrop, referential site and sampling material. The photo underneath shows one of the new works from her ongoing sculptural series Flesh in Stone, a casted pregnant torso, half superimposed by penciled contours and hand-traced curves tilted slightly at an angle, like a ghost twisting away from flesh, or faded memories of a mother’s body. The resulting image seems much more transformative than self-referential or derivative, its distinct doubleness capable of suspending our gaze in a realm of in-between – between formality and materiality, shape and presence, body as a thing and its lived experiences and nooks of intimacy. On the other wall, an almost indiscernible still image from a video work hints at a pair of moving hands frozen into a caress of light. The perpendicular angle as a motif repeats itself in the hands, the meeting of walls, the angle of the turning body and the layering of papers, the geometric clarity of which co-exists with a permanent soft blur that evades visibility, as if we can only perceive the work via feeling and touching.

About the artist:

Yu Ji (b. 1985, Shanghai, China) is known for her diverse practice that spans sculpture, installation, performance and video. Much of her work is motivated by the investigation of the concept of place and its relation to body, and the capacity for specific loci to be charged with geographical and historical narratives. She frequently conducts field research to reflect upon and interrogate the place of the body within everyday environments.