A sculpture by Liu Wei, Microworld, is featured in Entropy at Faurschou Foundation Beijing. This group exhibition aims to grasp the Chinese art scene at large by exploring the works of seven Chinese contemporary artists: Liu Wei, He An, Yang Fudong, Sun Xun, Zhao Zhao, Yu Ji, and Chen Tianzhuo. Each artist has been given their own exhibition section, in order for them to express themselves with their own distinct voice. The overall exhibition offers the viewers an insight into the complex and ever-evolving Chinese art scene of today within an overall framework—artists born and raised in a rapidly changing China, marked by economic growth and cultural exchange. Like the scientific term “entropy,” which is a measurement of the number of possible states in a given system, the exhibition is one voice from China, formed by many, and can be interpreted and experienced in various ways.
Microworld embodies a different kind of privileged gaze. In the context of the physical world, it represents the fundamental component of the world. In the anthropological cognitive system, the “microscopic world,” as the smallest, most indivisible unit from which no more cells can be divided, represents a low-level existence. Meanwhile, since molecules, elements, protons and other microscopic things are invisible to the naked eye, to the ancients, the “microworld” was a description of others, the natural kingdom from before their time, a different model of the world from the imagination. Humans needed a particular privilege to be able to complete this act of imagination, interpretation and seeing. In modern society, humanity’s reverence for the mystery of the “microworld” has been dispelled by the rationality of technology. The artist uses this artwork to elicit new reflection in the viewer on this ancient topic.