2024 Mix media 10m*7m*5m
Location: Chengdu, China
collaboration by artist Mengmeng Luo & Xinghao Liang
“Moment” is a large-scale installation created through the collaboration of two artists. The artists transformed the staircase of a museum into a walk-in cinema structure, integrating it spatially as part of the installation. The project revolves around the themes of space and spectatorship, employing architecture as a medium of presence and embedding multiple inverted structures that collectively constitute an immersive experience of the art field. The work draws inspiration from Richard Wagner’s concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk (“total work of art”) as well as the spatial narrative projects of Ilya and Emilia Kabakov.
The artists aim to blur the boundaries between visual art, sound, performance, and architecture, creating an experience that fully engages the human sensory system while simultaneously encouraging viewers to forget that they are inside an “artwork.” As spectators ascend the staircase, they emerge from a container concealing the complete structure, allowing the architectural installation to take shape behind them. After passing through a narrow corridor equipped with sound devices, they encounter an interior cinema that has been transformed into an inaccessible space, positioning the audience behind the cinema screen and subjecting them to the gaze of an unknown observer.
The significance of the project within the context of cinematic exhibition spaces lies not only in its operability and deployability but also in its emphasis on materiality and functionality. Drawing on the perspective of Louis Bordeleau, the “cinema” functions both as a material medium for passive viewing of two-dimensional screen works and as a site capable of conveying three-dimensional spatiality and conventional projection practices. This dual function allows the cinematic element to carry visual narratives and metaphorical meanings, ultimately transforming into a material substrate for spectatorship within the overall installation. The exhibition environment is carefully structured to construct narrative, ultimately amplifying the montage created by sound and the spatial context of the site.
Since the end of the Cold War and the rise of globalization in the 1980s, artists have increasingly engaged with questions of race, gender, and class, while reflecting on the relationships between nature, art, technology, and modern life. Richard Wagner argued that, with the advent of the age of reason and science, humanity gradually lost respect and reverence for nature, leading to the fragmentation of harmonious connections between artistic forms. These forms evolved in isolation, losing their original inspirational power. Moreover, the works of Gregor Schneider and Rachel Whiteread, which focus on “rooms” and “failed architecture,” have profoundly influenced our creative approach, prompting reflection on whether the audience’s spatial experience in galleries and white-cube spaces constitutes an essential component of art itself. From the perspective of Daniel Buren, museums embody an overarching conceptual framework that permeates the entire space, rather than merely demarcating areas for exhibiting artworks.
Based on these insights, we aim for our work to be organically “created” rather than passively interpreted by viewers. Unlike visual media, architectural space often encourages spectators to forget their own role as part of the artistic composition. In Moment, the boundaries between architectural space and sculpture gradually dissolve. Through the artists’ interventions and manipulations, the texture of wood is transformed into expanses of rusted, peeling metal, which are then connected to the museum staircase. The entrance to the corridor measures approximately 2.2 meters in height, while the structure reaches up to 5 meters at its tallest point, presenting an inwardly contracting spatial configuration.