Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art is proud to announce the its upcoming exhibition with two contemporary artists and sculptors Xiang Jing and Qu Guangci to host “Will Things Ever Get Better?” two-person exhibition. Through their art, the two artists pose questions and share their thoughts on life, art, the past, the present and the future, hoping that the audience would reflect on their inner world.

One does not need to answer whether the world is going to get better or not. Being good or bad is but a confusing objective fact on the surface, and also a subjective self-paralyzing mechanism. When a question like this is posed from the mouth of an artist, the ordinary rules of the world are already disturbed. Everyone’s answer actually leaks their own predicament and positioning. It’s like the Uncertainty Principle in Quantum Physics, when one attempts to gain an answer, one actually has already moved the quality and place of those micro-particles. So the absolute truth is but a solemn mask worn by the God of the Void.

In our secular world, the present is but scum filtered from the past, and the future is a passing cloud rising from the present. The answers one might have, with a smile or anger, with anguish or joy, is but a spontaneous correction to the reality of our predicament. The scum from the passing clouds forms the face of our current reality, sometimes rising and sometimes declining - realizing a subtle balance between illusion and reality.

Xiang Jing’s works can be divided into two parts: the acrobats and the animals - they are but reflections of the same subject matter, the predicament. One can view acrobatics as a twisted reality or view our reality as a laborious attempt of an acrobatic performance. We even view acrobatics as a saddening imitation of life, as every performance is a fight against fear. The cost for one to break from the norms is to lose a normal life, then one uses the hard-gained glory to fix one’s life back to normal. During this non-ending cycle and inhumane training, one