Elmgreen & Dragset like to transform the white cube into a resonance chamber that speaks to our real life experiences. For their show in Hangzhou’s contemporary art center, By Art Matters, they installed a club space in the ground floor, a meticulously designed and lighted environment in which they strategically placed sculptural works: a monochrome bottle shelf filled with rows upon rows of the same milky liquid, a modernist circular bar that turns the tables on customers who could be served only if there was an entry to its center, a cute terrier on a merry-go-round catering to the social media audience, below the ceiling a tight-rope walker hanging from a single hand with strange calm. These works appeared like strange guests in the party atmosphere of the opening, then during exhibition times the viewer becomes the intruder in eerily silent rooms. Upstairs the exhibition spaces were divided into several deeply symbolic tableaux of bronze figures painted in plaster white: kids playing silent games hidden behind bulky virtual reality headsets or staring out of the windows while offline, a tennis parable that has one youth cradling the winner’s trophy and the other lying face down on his half of the court, a maid watching over a children’s bed on which a vulture perches, and more. The book documents these complete environments in gorgeous spreads, along with shots of earlier installations for context. The texts explain both the history of the artists’ work and how it interrelates with Chinese expressions of a gay subculture, alongside an interview with the artists who reveal the deeply personal layers behind the pieces: “Club scenes have been central to many minority groups in defining themselves, in gathering strength and belief in their own worth and power and giving people a sense of belonging . . . Realizing a club project now, after Covid and all the lockdowns that have taken place all over the world, has been very different and new for us. Our After Dark installation almost feels like a memorial to a different time. In collaboration with BY ART MATTERSweiterlesen