THE DANGEROUS BALANCE

“The Dangerous Balance” comes from the poet Bei Dao’s comments on Zhang Yanzi’s works. He believes that “her works achieve a dangerous balance between art and therapy. With the unique sensitivity bestowed upon women, she is looking for the source of life for human beings to save themselves.” This sentence left a deep impression on the curator He Yuhong and she totally agreed with it as a short sentence that conveyed the dual meaning of philosophy and poetry. He Yuhong believes that artists are a group of people who keep “dangerous in balance and balanced in danger”. In her artistic experiments and explorations, Zhang Yanzi is committed to pursuing the “sorrow and trauma” that people intentionally avoid but cannot forget or bypass. This is a dangerous behavior, and precisely because of the danger, it is full of poetry and heart-warming.

Since the outbreak of pandemic in the context of the ever-changing relationship between the individual and society, the individual and the epoch, artists have gradually shifted from the past focus on self and others to a more grandiose focus on the emotions and destiny of the surrounding people, society and the world. Their creations naturally do not depart from a common theme: “remedy”. The “constant in change” reflected by artists reminds the curator of what Jacques Derrida said: “deconstruction is always a movement of its own.” The movement of self-deconstruction is not so much “dismantling and destroying”, rather it is a reconstruction in a larger dimension. This “self-movement” runs through the story composed of eras and individuals. It can be passive or active, and the “initiative” here is precisely the “dangerous balance” mentioned above.