55

Xiong Yanjun’s solo exhibition ”Exiled Things" opens on the 29th ofAugust 2026, featuring his recently completed mixed-media works. The exhibition concludes on the 19th of September. This marks Xiong Yanjun’s third solo show at 55, following "Follow the Object" (2021) and "Linger" (2023).

Xiong Yanjun has been going for walks in the wilderness more and more often - along riversides, wastelands, foothills, or deep into forests - without any particular destination. Sometimes he catches a few small fish; other times he simply passes the time. Yet when he return to his studio, he often brings back something: a branch, a stone, discarded furniture, rotten planks, sponges, or odd remnants whose purpose remains unclear. He calls this activity "wild gathering" much like fishing - it involves no set plan, but rather a kind of waiting, an engagement with nature. Once brought back, these objects remain untouched for long periods, just placed in corners or leaning against walls, like unfamiliar visitors temporarily left behind.

There is another kind of object in the studio, sharing a similar character: scraps from the creative process, discarded frames, dismantled old works, and excess plaster left to harden. He once thought of them merely as waste, but found it increasingly difficult to throw them away - once freed from their original functions, they revealed a different aspect, harmonizing strangely with twigs and stones gathered from the wild. Both have lost their original places and relationships; this very sense of absence creates an attraction and dependency, evoking a state of unresolved tension.

A few years ago, Xiong Yanjun described his working method as "following form": abandoning prior planning of structure and allowing materials, emotions, actions, and time to co-create the work. This approach has not fundamentally changed, though its focus has shifted - He now pays more attention to things that have broken away from their original systems, and how they might continue to exist within new relationships.

It is precisely in this process that the term "object" emerges. It is not an object in the philosophical sense; rather, he prefers to understand it through the original meaning of “ke" - to dwell as a guest, to reside temporarily, to stay borrowed or transient. An object is something exiled, severed from its original connection and home, wandering outside systems, yet to find new belonging while still retaining traces of the past. It may be a branch or a stone, originating from the wild or from a studio - what matters is not the source but the condition. Like driftwood converging from different directions, they enter the same space at a certain moment, awaiting new relationships to form.

In recent works, boxes, shelves, platforms, and niche-like structures repeatedly appear, gradually shifting from auxiliary elements to the central focus of his practice. What interests him may not be the materials themselves, but rather the spatial relationships between objects: placing one on top of another, inserting into, supporting or leaning against. Many pieces emerge from such simple actions - like arranging, like offering, or like an incomplete settling. Gravity is always present; everything tends toward falling and decay, and these structures merely hold them in place temporarily. Thus, he is increasingly drawn to the idea of “placement" - not simply positioning, but finding a resting place for displaced things; not assigning meaning, but a continuous process of reordering: seeking positions, adjusting relations, adding support, connecting, covering, coating - gradually forming a "home" where something can dwell.

Creation, therefore, does not always involve making something new; it is more like an arrangement. The found objects and remnants that enter the artwork neither regain their original identities nor achieve a final destination - they are merely repositioned, allowed to continue existing for a while. Perhaps the "object" precisely points to this condition: the world continuously produces displaced things, and all creation can do is, within limited time, find a temporary place for some of them.

Xiong Yanjun was born in Liu’an, Anhui Province in 1977. He graduated from the School of Fine Arts of Anhui Normal University (B.A.) in 2001; and graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts of Nanjing University in 2008 (M.F.A.) . He now works and lives in Wuhu, Anhui Province.