Between the white and black horses, running through the gap—dashing, or not.
Artist reaches out, pulling the white figure, bathed in the daylight, through the aperture to "this side," the world belonging to the artist, a space conjured through magic.
A phrase related to horses and time is "白駒過隙" (the white horse has crossed the gap), describing time as fleeting like the shadow of a galloping white horse passing through a crevice, signifying the ephemeral nature of time that cannot be captured. However, stepping into Zhang Junyi's "Eire Horse Track," you will discover that the horses in this track are mostly shadows, or rather, dark figures. Unlike the metaphor of "白駒過隙," Eire Horse Track resembles more of a reflection. Here, even the shortest time is captured by the artist, subtly shifted, fixed, and repeated without notice.
In "Carousel, ±1," the carousel transformed into a shadow—here's the trick. It looks like a carousel, but it is actually two halves extracted, juxtaposed; the seemingly uniformly rotating left and right horse figures gradually detach from each other in a continuous loop (although this detachment is not overt). The temporal nature of the carousel, a homogeneous cycle, is quietly manipulated by the artist. She adjusts the rotation rates of the left and right cycles by adding or subtracting 1%, resulting in a seemingly harmonious but gradually unbalanced rotation, creating a world where, despite different speeds, the rotation continues. Standing in the gradually desynchronizing rotation, I am uncertain whether I should feel uneasy. After all, the carousel is considered the safest ride precisely because its predictability is harmless, always maintaining a steady rotation. However, in the Eire Horse Track, the homogeneity akin to a constant speed is dismantled by the artist, becoming a temporal illusion.
"Carousel, ±1," 2021, dual-channel video, looped playback.
I asked Zhang Junyi, "Why are the horses here all black?" only to find myself asking a question akin to Alice falling down the rabbit hole—a bit amusing and probably without a correct answer. Black is the compression of an endlessly deep space; it is both the lack of depth and the bottomless deep. Therefore, it can be a shadow and a substance. This duality is turned by the artist into a set of rules, playing between the next two sets of offline/online works: the framed "Muybridge's Horse" and the online work "Rotation," and the horizontally arranged "Carousel" on the wall and the online work "Rocking."
The former transforms the sequential photography work "The Horse in Motion" by Eadweard Muybridge into a carousel (i.e., the online work "Rotation"), then flattens that carousel into a two-dimensional painting on the wall. The latter takes real rocking horses from a toy museum—originally in color—and transforms them into the black shadows in the online work "Rocking" (clicking on any colored rocking horse turns it into a flat black shadow rocking back and forth); then, these black shadows become three-dimensional woodcut sculptures in the physical exhibition space. The back and forth between online and offline creates a sense of playfulness: amid material transformations and spatial compressions/expansions, time seems to stagnate, and the black horse shadows shuttle and deform between two and three dimensions, frolicking.
(It was only after leaving the exhibition that I learned Muybridge was the inventor of the Zoopraxiscope, a device that fascinated me endlessly as a child. By looking through a small hole, inside the lightless box, a glowing grid was projected. Turning a handle would make the device rotate horizontally, transforming the originally sequenced, grid-like motions of a person riding a horse into a continuous dynamic figure in motion.)
Top image: "Rotation," looped playback on the webpage; bottom image: "Muybridge's Horse," painting, acrylic paint, 420 × 628 cm.
Top Image: "Rocking," interactive responsive webpage; bottom Image: "Wooden Horse", sculpture, wood.
The following work in the exhibition, the perpetual and repetitive "Horse Racing," where a horse continually sprints on a fixed track, is perhaps my favorite corner in this horse arena. It seems to silently convey a certain philosophy of life. Crossing the L-shaped right-angle wall, a small LED creates a dazzling track. A horse starts running from one side of the wall, crosses the right angle, and accelerates and sprints upon entering the other side of the wall. The artist says, "This is a horse that has fallen behind either because it runs too fast or too slow. On this track, it gradually increases its speed, sprinting towards the finish line." There are many blanks left here: we don't know if it runs too fast or too slow (then we might wonder: does it matter?), we can't see the finish line on this extracted track (which makes us doubt: is there really a finish line?), the only thing we can confirm is its single status. On the track, there is indeed only this horse, repeatedly running the same stretch of road. Isn't this very Sisyphean? The song of the giant who pushes the boulder up the mountain day after day but never reaches the summit.
Top Image: "Running," Randomly Playing Web Page; bottom Image: "Galloping," LED horse racing lamp, 800 × 32 cm.
In this seemingly endless loop of time, it seems to find its resting place in the final piece. "Code" occupies the only black area in the all-white exhibition space, revealing the true form of the horses—a series of colorful code serving as the flesh of the programmatic horses. In the absence of code, the programmatic horses vanish; when the code emerges, the programmatic horses leisurely graze and flick their tails, as if resting in a stable. Arriving at this point, we finally understand the trickery in "Ephemeral Racetrack": if the fleeting moment is likened to the white horse passing through the crevice, then the ephemeral racetrack might be the artist reaching out, pulling the white silhouette of the horse, bathed in the daylight, through the orifice into "this side," the world belonging to the artist, a space crafted through magic. The daylight remains on the other side of the crevice, and the progression it brings to time has no effect here. In the artist's racetrack, within the nearly kneaded time, horses experience fixation, repetition, cycles, and even formation, transformation, and dissipation in the artist's hands. The entire exhibition space is like an uninterrupted waltz, repeating its beats, sometimes shedding parts here, sometimes coming to a halt there.
Top Image: "Standing," Randomized Interactive Webpage Playback Bottom Image: "Code," Audiovisual Installation
This passage reflects on the interplay between the offline and online aspects of the "Eadweard Muybridge" exhibition. It describes the artist's manipulation of time and space, creating a world where the white horse, bathed in the daytime sunlight, is brought into the artist's realm through a hole, forming a magically constructed space. The text further explores the correspondence between online virtual works and offline physical pieces, emphasizing a one-to-one relationship. The comparison between the code-based world and the physical exhibition highlights the artist's control over time and the horse's experiences, showcasing fixity, repetition, cycles, and transformations.
The reference to the code-based world connecting online and offline works, such as the "Code" and its corresponding online piece "Standing," or "Running" corresponding to the online piece "Marquee," adds a layer of complexity to the exhibition. The author draws parallels between this synchronicity and the earlier work "Carousel, ±1," noting a harmonic yet gradually unbalancing inconsistency. The idea of two horses running forward with their backs to each other or a horse meeting its reflection suggests a sense of creative pursuit or life journey, where the race's sprint doesn't necessarily conclude the race—akin to the ongoing process of creation or life itself.
The passage concludes by reflecting on the current exhibition, "Eadweard Muybridge," comparing it to the artist's previous work, "Carousel." It notes the vibrant imagery of the revolving carousel in an empty dark room, where the horses continue to spin endlessly. In contrast, the "Eadweard Muybridge" exhibition presents all the horses finding their own poses in an empty arena. The author likens these poses to the actions referenced in the online pieces: rotation, rocking, running, and standing. The metaphorical association with the horse that "may have fallen behind because it's either running too fast or too slow" reinforces the idea that reaching the endpoint is not crucial. Instead, the focus is on continuing to run on one's own track, whether fast or slow.