“You must not, my dear friend, give more importance to Botany than it really has; it is a study of pure curiosity and has no other real use than that, which a thinking sensible being may deduce from the observation of nature and the wonders of the universe," writes Jean-Jacques Rousseau in a letter written in 1770s to a lady revealing his knowledge of botany. Should these words be used in the context of stating art, they may offer a sense of déjà vu despite the verbose rhetoric where the artist's creations are categorized and labeled in various ways. At the same time, their genuine inquisitive essence is obscured in a dense fog.

Fan Xi is often put into the camp of photographic artists, perhaps because her works are often delivered in the medium of photography, and with the opening of her new solo exhibition "Who's Singing" at CLC Ventures, a body of work that defies categorization gradually unfolds. With flickering candles, fluttering threads, and lightweight frames, Fan Xi evokes warmth with a hefty candle. This lighting object embodies various symbolic meanings in various cultural contexts and is, most of all, associated with rituals. Meanwhile, in the gallery, candleproduced by the artist never stopped burning, asPauseexpresses a connection with familiar scenes in life and the atmosphere of gatherings, the exhibition title offers another layer of imagination through an inquiry.

Since the early phase of her art practice, Fan Xi often emphasized the notion of “production” of her photographs, an ongoing approach allowing her to capture pictures in significant volumes before she filters, observes, superimposes, and processes the images on computer software. Suppose sculpture functions to mobilize the human body and even impact the reception of a work ......