Shuang Li: nobody’s home

Every artist’s body of work may be understood both in terms of the substance of the work itself and of how that work manages to inculcate and function within a network of association – in other words, how successful it is at attracting interest from gallerists, which sort of people show up to the opening, which publications write favorable reviews of it. 

Shuang Li’s exhibition nobody’s home, which opened at Peres Projects during Berlin Gallery Weekend, has proved highly adept at situating itself within such a network. Peres Projects is one of Berlin’s best galleries, and the vernissage did not fail to impress, with lots of interesting looking people presumably thinking interesting things, pacing around Li’s strange-yet-familiar sculptural forms. You didn’t have to look at the works at all to know that this was a show to be aware of, to be seen at, to mention to your friends at an after-party. 

Li, who is originally from China, has been living between Berlin and Geneva since the beginning of the pandemic. She came to Berlin two years ago for her first show at Peres Projects, and has remained in Europe ever since. Her new set of works was developed during this period of time and deals, among other things, with the nature of home, the role of technology in human intimacy, and the various ways these facts of life are or are not embodied. 

Li’s work itself functions largely through an associative framework as well. The pieces seem to form their own miniature language – symbols such as hearts, stars, and apostrophes are repeated throughout. A series of three silvery wall-mounted pieces resemble a child’s hair, braided with trinkets, and may also remind the viewer of a snarl of cables – although why this is, and why those cables would have anything braided into them at all, doesn’t seem like a particularly fertile field of inquiry. 

In addition to the hair/cable things, the show features several other wall-mounted sculptures that may or may not be iphone cases, two colorful floor sculptures in the shape of shells, and a video installation. On their own, the individual pieces weren’t easily decodable in the sense of communicating a particular intention to the viewer. Taken as a whole, though, the works are dynamic and speak to a sense of balance, perhaps urging us to focus on the relationships between the pieces rather than on the pieces themselves.

It’s easy to waste time trying to explain the success of a given piece by arguing for its substance, and just as easy to waste time trying to criticize the popularity of a piece by critiquing the extent to which it fits the current standard for what is “good.” People have different opinions, and both personal and collective opinions change over time. Li doesn’t seem to be particularly worried about convincing you one way or the other – rather, her eye is artfully trained on the interactive processes between the works, and between those works and her public.

Shuang Li ‘nobody’s home’
Peres Projects
April 29 – May 27, 2022