A person floats mysteriously in mid-air, frozen in time and space as if defying the constraints of physics. The work engages with the notions of the body as material and the materiality of the body, testing the limits of physical and cognitive possibilities as we try to comprehend what we see.
A prolific and controversial artist, Xu Zhen’s conceptually-driven practice encompasses a vast range of media and often employs humor, irony, and sophisticated trickery. For In Just a Blink of an Eye (2005), a breathing body floats mysteriously in mid-air, frozen in time and space as if defying the constraints of physics.
The work engages with the notions of the body as material and the materiality of the body, testing the limits of physical and cognitive possibilities as we try to comprehend what we see. We wait for movement, for the performer to stand up or to continue falling, but instead time seems to stretch on impossibly and there is no resolution. In previous iterations of the work, Zhen employed members of marginalized communities, such as migrant workers, to undertake the performance. In these instances the literal suspension became a metaphor for liminal civil status.