Opening: 2015.11.14 16:00
Organized by: Surplus Space, French Consulate, SEE Conservation
Artists: Cui Yanbin, Liao Guohe, Wang Sishun, Wang Jianwei, Yan Jun, Zhu Tian

Unlawfully Constructed – the very first exhibition in the Surplus Space opened on 14th, Nov. 2015. It is an experimental project on construction. The theme originates from Yingzao Fashi ((Chinese: 營造法式; literally: “Treatise on Architectural Methods or State Building Standards”), the official guidebook and a technical treatise on architectural design and construction from the Northern Song Dynasty. This most comprehensive guide on architecture theory in the Chinese history also serves as an important textual reference for viewing and understanding construction and politics in ancient China. Construction as a concept has long become „unlawful“, yet it still is subjected to the covert yet evident cultural-power structure, just like in the times of Yingzao Fashi. The challenge we are confronted with today goes beyond coping lawfulness with unlawfulness, it also entails the question of how to handle the unlawful circumstances we find ourselves in with new lawful or unlawful means. In the end, both the means of lawfulness and of unlawfulness have become legitimate. We seek for an illegitimate possibility in their superficial clash and internal structural similarity. This is both the academic orientation of Surplus Space and the theoretical standing of the exhibition. Six artists – Yanbin CUI, Guohe LIAO, Sishun WANG, Jianwei WANG, Jun YAN and Tian ZHU – are here with twelve pieces of artworks. Their installations, images, sounds/performance and paintings all circle around issues of artistic system, space construction, theatrical order and cognitive politics. This profound experiment strives to provide a new prototype for further discourse.