Leo Gallery | Shanghai
Pang Hailong: Invisible Force
Curated by Wang Xiaosong
In the pharmacopeia of traditional Chinese medicine, ox bone is recorded under various indications. In general, it is regarded as a gentle remedy, capable of dispelling harmful influences with a balanced, steady force—a medicine that, even after death, affirms the “perfect” life of the ox. Yet, were we to return it to its own natural herd, we would be struck by the paradox of humanity’s self-divided confidence: there is no other living being so equally reduced to a consumable. The force of anger that should rightfully exist is too often neutered, cut away in the course of narratives made habitual.
The use of ox bone as an artistic material is by no means rare in contemporary art. But for Pang Hailong—born into a family of traditional Chinese medicine and later experienced in founding and running a pharmaceutical factory—the relationship between “material” and “life” is something deeply felt in the body. For over a decade, he has been writing what could be called a “post-history” of materials such as ox bone and dust, inscribed in the visual language of contemporary art—part the accumulation of artistic and technical experience, part a gift bestowed by fate.
Pang’s Ox Bone series emerged almost in step with his Big Stick series. Both use simple, everyday forms in direct collision, delivering a blunt critique of violence—gestures that, in retrospect, seem like his final outcry before the arrival of a greater historical storm, laden with tension and repression.
From there began what we see today as Invisible Force: the drawing in of both edge and blade, a simultaneous turning “underground” in form and content. Here, the provocation is stripped away, replaced by a humble world laid out in prostration. The exhibition space is covered with floorboards, each one hand-shaped and polished by Pang from ox bone, with no sign or instruction—free for visitors to walk upon. They speak, in silence, of the fate of all expendable lives—ourselves among them—used, discarded, and forgotten.
Invisible Force is a single work, a namesake exhibition, and a chronicle of ox bone’s dissolution and its gathering into energy.
