Exhibition
Walking in the Dark
23 Mar 2024 – 31 May 2024
Regular hours
- Saturday
- 10:00 – 18:00
- Sunday
- 10:00 – 18:00
- Tuesday
- 10:00 – 18:00
- Wednesday
- 10:00 – 18:00
- Thursday
- 10:00 – 18:00
- Friday
- 10:00 – 18:00
Address
- 4777 Binjiang Avenue
- Pudong New Area
- Shanghai
Shanghai - China
Irish conceptual artist Robyn Ward’s eagerly awaited solo exhibition has opened at the Modern Art Museum (MAM) Shanghai.
About
Curated by MAM Artistic Director Shai Baitel, Walking In The Dark is an immersive experience inspired by Ward’s nomadic lifestyle and dual driving factors of escapism and avoidance. These compulsions are explored through abstract compositions and mixed media, comprising over 30 large painted canvasses alongside six freestanding sculptures.
Ward’s career has seen him establish studios in London, Amsterdam, New York, Los Angeles and Mexico City. It is this itinerant lifestyle that informs Walking In The Dark by asking, “Why do people roam?” and “What is the aftermath of perpetual movement?”
Like the abstract nature of Ward’s artworks, a nomadic sensibility often veils deeper reasons for such roaming. His work invites questions about what exactly Ward is running away from through his travels. Like the act of walking in the dark, viewing Ward’s exhibition requires one’s eyes to adjust to see what would otherwise not be detected.
Walking In The Dark invites the visitor to contemplate the psychological, political and emotional interpretations of the exhibition’s various facets, enhanced by the intricate, sensitively-lit space where the artworks are on display at MAM Shanghai.
Using wet, loose brushstrokes with distinctive markings, Walking In The Dark sees Ward tell his story on outsized canvases through a nostalgic veil of innocence and naivety.