Earth to Gut

Alchemyverse

Curated by Mo Kong

April 14-May 18, 2024

Alchemyverse's practice has rekindled our attention to Earth Art. These two Chinese artists follow the steps of the pioneers of land art, using field surveys to sample dirt, dig pits, and fire clays in America’s Wild West. Their creative method is rational and rigorous, following a procedural and scientific structure with an underlying process of poetry and emotion. One of the porcelain tablets bears the inscription: "To understand them (matters) first we have to translate them, and that translation takes place internally, not in the brain, but in the guts, the blood, the pounding heart."

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The exhibition is full of dirt: soil, pit-fired clay, porcelain, ceramics, and other unseen, unsung sources. Dirt demonstrates an agency without agents, a foundational, perpetual becoming that happens without will or intention or delineation. In fact, dirt, a rather indiscrete substance, is necessary for the emergence of less diffuse life forms: "Whatever discreteness, integrity, and identity living things may have, it all comes from the activity of that undifferentiated, much maligned stuff we call dirt."1

Alchemyverse's manipulation of dirt mimics the process by which vibratory forces shape landscapes. During their roadtrip across the Sierra Nevada and Colorado Plateau in 2021, the collective made a series of pit-fired vessels on site; the shapes of the sculptures were guided by sound and the vibration caused by sound. As the invisible yet prominent material in this body of works, sounds were internalized as lines, shapes, and diagrams throughout the exhibition. The recorded sound of crevices, deserts, sandstones, volcanic ash-formed dunes, and salt pans were translated into drawings and sculptures. The ephemeral, anti-material sonic happenings were given entities, and documented the Earth's life cycle, Earth as a vast vessel: "Matter resolves into numberless vibrations, all linked together in uninterrupted continuity, all bound up with each other, and traveling in every direction like shivers through an immense body.”2

Alchemyverse was founded by artists Bicheng Liang and Yixuan in New York. The duo began their collaboration at the MFA program at Columbia University. Bicheng Liang received his BFA from the Central Academy of Fine Arts, China. Yixuan received her BA from University of California, San Diego. They combine their respective knowledge bases and skills in printmaking and sound studies, with intensive field research to form their collaborative practice. Recent selected solo and group exhibitions include International Studio & Curatorial Program, New York; Praise Shadows Gallery, Massachusetts; Asia Art Archive in America, New York; The Bishop Museum, Hawai’i; Lenfest Center for the Arts, Columbia University, New York, and among others. Residencies include LMCC Governors Island, New York; Desert 23°S, La Wayaka Current, Chile; AAA-A Zine Residency, Brooklyn; and the Rabbit Island Residency, Lake Superior, Michigan. Currently, they are in residence at ISCP.

1 Bodies and Pleasures: Foucault and the Politics of Sexual Normalization, Ladelle McWhorter

2 Matter and Memory, Henri Bergson