Triangle, Square, Circle
Date: 8 July - 11 July 2025
Venue: Rong Art Centre, B13-16 Sunny Bay Sunglow Riviera, 38 Kaibin Road, Shanghai, China
Programme Director: Fan Shi
Curator: Weiwei Zhang
Executive Curator: Arthology
Curatorial Advisor: Zimo Dong
Academic Advisor: Shuyao Hong, Yue Xu
Curatorial Assistant: Yaxuan Bian, Zhihan Wu, Tao Hong, Dixin Zheng
Triangle, Square, Circle is a group exhibition that adopts geometric forms as a symbolic language to reflect the evolving trajectories of artistic creation and personal experience. These three shapes are not merely formal symbols, but metaphors for the transitions and transformations in artists’ mental states, identities, and creative paths. In the earliest forms of human visual expression, geometry emerged as a primal symbolic language—neither abstract nor representational, but a meeting point of thought and emotion. As Wassily Kandinsky once said, form is the outer garment of the soul. This exhibition seeks to understand the inner through the outer, and to perceive time through shape.
Triangle – As the most directional of geometric forms, the triangle—with its sharp, upright posture—symbolises the artist’s initial impulse to confront and break through the unknown. It represents an upward force, a gesture of self-definition, and marks the emergence of consciousness from chaos.
Square – Expanding equally on all sides, the square contains within it notions of order and boundary. It is a shape of construction, a place of dwelling. It points to the artist’s self-refinement through method, language, and structure—a process of systematic formation, and a moment of stabilisation and reflection.
Circle – With no beginning or end, the circle embodies fluidity and inclusiveness. It suggests a sense of ease and clarity that comes with experience. No longer fixated on tension or form, it turns toward a softer dialogue with the world—an open and higher-dimensional state of self-harmony, engaging the present while envisioning future possibilities.
Another narrative thread running through the exhibition is the notion of time. Yet we do not view it as a linear trajectory directed toward the future, nor as a binary opposition between past and future. Here, the circle serves not only as a visual metaphor but as a model for time and consciousness: it can roll forward, symbolising imagination and exploration of what’s to come; or spiral backwards, carrying a gaze upon the past and recalibrating the self. Within this bidirectional temporal sense, we examine the current creative state of a group of returning Chinese artists, who navigate the borders of geography and identity, generating new perceptual paths and expressive energies through migration and return, rupture and reconstruction.
Thus, this exhibition is neither a retrospective nor a pure projection into the future, but rather an internal convergence situated in a liminal space. It reflects a continual repositioning, a blurring of boundaries. These artists no longer insist on defining themselves or their forms, but instead adopt an elastic, open posture in response to a world in flux, expanding new possibilities for contemporary creation through cycles and intersections.
The exhibition unfolds in three sections, using geometric form as a metaphorical thread that naturally weaves together the artists’ timelines and creative transformations:
“Erect · Triangle” – Focused on early-stage works, marked by stylistic experimentation and formal exploration, revealing strong individual will and a spirit of breakthrough.
“Expand · Square” – A phase of relative stability, emphasising structure and system. These works reflect the artists’ processes of rebuilding during their return or transitional periods.
“Merge · Circle” – Works in this section are more relaxed, free, and integrated, concerned with flexible responses to internal and external relationships. They offer a self-drawn echo of future directions.
