AFTER

  • AFTER <A KISS AFTER DRINK> After <A Kiss After Drink> is a work that discusses intimate relationships, consisting of two...

    AFTER <A KISS AFTER DRINK>

     

    After <A Kiss After Drink> is a work that discusses intimate relationships, consisting of two continuous love stories: A Kiss After Drink and Since Then.
     
    A Kiss After Drink is an adaptation from a short story of the same name published by Ling Shuhua in 1925, presented in the form of seventeen lightboxes. It tells a story of love vs. lust/freedom vs. loyalty, and sets the example of the awakening and expression of women's consciousness during the May Fourth Movement. The artist chose Leshan as the filming location, where Ling Shuhua relocated, with National Wuhan University during the Second Sino-Japanese War. She corresponded with the British writer Virginia Woolf while she was in Leshan, and their friendship also implies Ling Shuhua's own love story.
     
    Since Then is a continuation of A Kiss After Drink, set in Shanghai, and structured in three acts. It presents two narrative directions through multi-channel and split-screen videos. It also provides the contextual information of the husband's response to his wife's question in the play, "If I also want to kiss, would you allow it?"
     
    In daily life, romantic relationships are either considered as a sort of privacy, avoided in conversations with others, or, when love affairs circulate as gossip, love inevitably becomes vulgarised. Especially in the cyber world, just a few derogatory words with strong moral undertones can make people tremble with fear. The issue of love posed by Ling Shuhua a hundred years ago still lacks social consensus today, and has become even more divisive. In this sense, if love life is shrouded in the dust of shame, has our society progressed or regressed? Therefore, artists wish to discuss this issue seriously and openly, for the sake of love.
     
    In terms of image and narrative, the artist explores the internal and external relationships among still image, motion picture, and text in mix-media works from the perspective of visual pragmatics. It specifically involves whether still image and motion picture modalities are interchangeable at the narrative level; whether text can be viewed as a sign or symbol; and the various forms in which text can exist within a work, as well as the various ways it can be read/viewed.
     
    Using the same materials from A Kiss After Drink, when presented in a still modality, it becomes a visual representation of Ling Shuhua's A Kiss After Drink. When these materials appear as meta-images in Since Then, they become a hidden proposition in another narrative.
     
    Additionally, the artist explicitly tells a phenomenon in cognitive linguistics: the meaning of words or sentences is almost always uncertain in the absence of context. For example, the interpretation of the husband's response in Since Then, "No problem, just don't let me know," completely depends on which part of the context provided by the split-screen video the audience chooses to believe as a premise for reasoning. This choice directly determines the direction of the story's ending.

     

    Text / Cao Mengqin

  • ARTIST: Cao Mengqin Cao Mengqin is a visual artist who primarily works with two mediums: still photography and mixed media....

    ARTIST: Cao Mengqin

     

    Cao Mengqin is a visual artist who primarily works with two mediums: still photography and mixed media.
     
    His still photography is deeply rooted in the exploration of the interplay between time, space, and collective cultural memory. Using photographs taken across China over the past decade, he meticulously constructs visual collages that challenge conventional notions of temporal-spatial juxtaposition. His dedication to pushing artistic boundaries is evident not only in his creative process but also in his engagement with traditional cultural narratives, informed by his research in iconographic multimodal corpus at the Institute of Corpus Studies and Applications, Shanghai International Studies University. Continuously experimenting with new techniques and methodologies, he seeks to expand the dialogue between photography, digital media, and traditional art forms.
     
    His mixed media work explores how multimodal narratives unfold within physical spaces. These works are typically presented as exhibitions and often involve extensive collaboration with other artists, incorporating diverse modalities such as calligraphy, seal carving, sound, text, and live performance. Notable projects include the performance piece Relative Shadows (2008), the large-scale pinhole camera installation Gengle Hall in Tongli, Suzhou (2017), the 2024 exhibition The Stories of the Unpublished Local News Manuscripts, and the personal project of text and poem Six-O-Five in 2025.
  • CURATOR: Huang Yunhe Director of OFOTO & ANAR, Co-founder of T Easyart, Art Director of Easyart Contemporary Art Center.

    CURATOR: Huang Yunhe

     

    Director of OFOTO & ANAR, Co-founder of T Easyart, Art Director of Easyart Contemporary Art Center.

  • Cao Mengqin, Since then #P1, 2025. Static image, 110 × 73 cm. Courtesy of the artist.

  • Cao Mengqin, Since then #P3, 2025. Static image, 110 × 73 cm. Courtesy of the artist.

  • Cao Mengqin, Since then #S2.1, 2025. 4K dual-screen video, left screen, 20". Courtesy of the artist.

  • Cao Mengqin, Drinking at the hill, 2024. Light box, 100 × 30 cm. Courtesy of the artist.

  • Cao Mengqin, “We don't cover him at all”, 2024. Light box, 100 × 30 cm. Courtesy of the artist. 

  • Cao Mengqin, The end, 2024. Light box, 38 × 65 cm. Courtesy of the artist.

  • OFOTO & ANART

     

    OFOTO Gallery was officially established in 2006 at M50 Shanghai, collaborating with more than 100 artists from home and abroad, successfully organizing hundreds of exhibitions and inviting well-known experts as curators or academic supports. OFOTO is actively engaged in exchanges and cooperation with other international galleries and institutions. In 2009, the gallery expanded to include "ANART Space" as a space to showcase a richer and more diverse range of contemporary art. OFOTO & ANART has always adhered to its artistic philosophy, strives to discover and cultivate emerging potential young artists with individuality in idea or in technique, and offers them a platform for exhibition, communication and assessment, and to promote their outstanding works to the domestic and international art market.