Stella Zhong: (of an object) Synchronized Loss

Stella Zhong:
(of an object) Synchronized Loss
July 9—August 27, 2022

Mariel Capanna and Stella Zhong in conversation upon the occasion of their solo exhibitions on view at Adams and Ollman July 9–August 27th, 2022.

Stella Zhong and quantum physicist Damon Daw discuss time, probability globs, and the physicality of consciousness

Adams and Ollman is pleased to present (of an object) Synchronized Loss, a solo exhibition by Stella Zhong, on view at the gallery from July 9 through August 27, 2022. The exhibition features six sculptures installed within an imposing built environment. The sculptures read as fragmented architectural elements, technology, or systems. Although suggestive of functionality, they disrupt our sense of scale and logic, turning away from us, hiding their purpose, intentions, and identity.

Zhong’s recent sculptures are carriers of discrete information and secret worlds. The artist builds environments that imply navigability of a map or utility of a tool. Smaller components perform precise, if unexpected, roles in and around the host forms. These circles, lines and dots are interchangeable as numbers, words, places, particles that continuously split, group, reconfigure. As they slip from order into randomness, systems emerge and dissolve, transforming into futuristic landscapes that are obscured and shifting in nature. Often the viewer must look beyond the surface—to the bottom or the back of a work, in between objects, or above normal height. Crouching or jumping might reveal the worlds they contain—or sometimes not at all.

Included in (of an object) Synchronized Loss is a group of five sculptures that are iterations of one form—a two-dimensional plane bent to multi-dimensions—that conjure both privacy and potential. The viewer is confronted with the front of the sculpture that appears opaque and gives little information; the other side encompasses many states entangled at once. Within the interior of these sculptures reside layers of miniscule objects that oscillate between recognizable things and abstract geometries. Here, Zhong closes the gaps between the outer space and the subatomic, the intimate and the distant, the material and the metaphysical. The sculptures become self-referential, the scales and physicalities incoherent; strings are electricity, dots are atomic formations doubled as numeric codes. They weave questions around anonymity, entanglement and entropy into a new model that expands the artist’s ongoing concern with the initial breaking point of order and logic.

Stella Zhong (b. 1993, Shenzhen, China; lives and works in New York, NY) received her BFA from Rhode Island School of Design in 2015 and MFA from Yale University School of Art in 2021. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally: at Chapter NY and Sculpture Center in New York, NY; FANTA in Milan, Italy; The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, CT: Galerie Marguo in Paris, France; PEANA in Mexico City, Mexico; Guan Shanyue Art Museum in Shenzhen, China and Hive Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, China; among others.

Works

Stella Zhong
5th Strategy to Alternate, 2022
string, wire, various clays, steel mesh, paper, plastic, paint, sand, resin, tint, wood
45 1/2h x 12w x 9d in
115.57h x 30.48w x 22.86d cm
SZ/S 2249

Stella Zhong
6th Strategy to Alternate, 2022
string, wire, various clays, steel mesh, paper, plastic, paint, sand, resin, tint, wood
49 1/2h x 12w x 9d in
125.73h x 30.48w x 22.86d cm
SZ/S 2250

Stella Zhong
7th Strategy to Alternate, 2022
string, wire, various clays, steel mesh, paper, plastic, paint, sand, resin, tint, wood
49 1/2h x 12w x 9d in
125.73h x 30.48w x 22.86d cm
SZ/S 2251

Stella Zhong
Strategy to Alternate *Outside of Expected Range, 2022
mylar, paper, string, wire, various clays, plastic, oil paint, resin, fiberglass, tint, wood
78h x 13w x 8d in
198.12h x 33.02w x 20.32d cm
SZ/S 2252

Stella Zhong
9th Strategy to Alternate, 2022
string, wire, various clays, steel mesh, paper, plastic, paint, sand, resin, tint, wood
49 1/2h x 12w x 9d in
125.73h x 30.48w x 22.86d cm
SZ/S 2253