Empty Stance and Sway: A4 Collection Exhibition

“Empty Stance and Sway — To the Era Pretending to Dance at the Crossroads”

By Wang Yalei

In today’s era, no period in history has provided such abundant opportunities for people to look back on themselves. Even though big data is driving the solidification of personal information bubbles to create outlets for consumption, for most people, the amount of information trapped in these bubbles is far more abundant than in any previous time. Thus, we are no longer living in an era that can be called “true” or “correct.” As China rapidly modernizes and urbanizes, unresolved issues resurface, stirred by the turbulence of time. This has fragmented people’s cultural tastes and ideals—old standards have weakened and new ones emerge from individuals or small groups, leaving no unified answers. Once the grand collective narratives loosen and are quickly swept away by the torrent of bubble-like information, making it difficult to rebuild. But the existing systems of answers are fragile. After all, with the great development of science and the explosion of information, the view of the starry sky that we see now is different from the one seen by people a hundred or a thousand years ago. We know that what we see are light, matter, time, dimensions, life… rather than the twinkling eyes of the night sky. New knowledge often comes with the questioning or even denial of existing knowledge, hindering people’s courage to explore. Every step toward the “known” brings us closer to a larger unknown abyss. The doubt about what is known and the fear of what is unknown cause hesitation in the pursuit of knowledge, eventually trapping us in the dilemma between the known and the unknown.

In this era filled with “truths” and “reversals,” thinking becomes painful because questions always outnumber answers. To know is difficult; to act, even harder.

The exhibition ” Empty Stance and Sway ” selects several works in the A4 Art Museum’s collection, most of which were created after 2010. These pieces construct a dynamic balance through their materials, methods, and concepts, reflecting artists’ exploration of personal style and visual experimentation. The works provoke curiosity and mental tension: Do they tell a story, or are they metaphors? Are they aesthetic displays or abstract imaginations brought into form? The visual form brings the artist’s thoughts into reality, while the actual scene before our eyes points toward a more abstract imagination. “Empty Stance” is a term from Kongfu, where the foot barely touches the ground, existing between attack and defense. The addition “swaying” breaks the original intent of the movement, transforming a static uncertainty into a dynamic interplay between virtuality and reality. It sounds like a dance step, but it is still just a movement — much like what we all do every day: keep ourselves moving, searching for direction within the movement, searching for problems within the direction, and trying to find answers within the problems.