At the dawn of the millennium, “Guangdong Speed,” curated by Hou Hanru, ignited international focus on Chinese contemporary art, particularly the practices in photography, installation, and video by artists from the Pearl River Delta region. Artist Zheng Guogu, born in 1970 in Yangjiang, Guangdong, first gained attention with early works like “Yangjiang Youth,” which revealed the desires and identity anxieties of southern youth under the wave of consumerism. He later translated the virtual world of Age of Empires into a physical utopia—”Liao Garden,” a real-world garden in Yangjiang attempting to dissolve various boundaries. Today, Zheng Guogu and his art collective, the Yangjiang Group (Zheng Guogu, Chen Zaiyan, Sun Qinglin), are exploring the intricacies of form and spirit, inner and outer, illusion and concreteness through a kind of all-encompassing logic akin to the “Great Transformation.”
“Measure the Law with the Body,” currently exhibited at the Sea World Culture and Arts Center in Shenzhen, is the Yangjiang Group’s first solo museum exhibition in China in a decade. The exhibition focuses on the tripartite relationship of “Qing-Li-Fa” (human sentiment, natural reason, and human law), using embodied methods to deduce the mutual extension and disintegration between the collective social body and the individual, rearranging bodily perception from the standpoint of writing. Inside the exhibition hall, calligraphy is virtually omnipresent. Most characters are written on lightly tinted paper, which is then crumpled, piled, and laid across the floor. Hidden mechanisms beneath cause these lightweight calligraphic sheets to rustle rhythmically and repeatedly, forming the general topography of the hall: a calligraphic ocean.
The exhibition encompasses classic representative works by Zheng Guogu / the Yangjiang Group spanning 30 years. It includes the large-scale calligraphic works on canvas from the “Body” series and the “Transformation” series’ thangka works approching Buddhist and Daoist themes post-2020, as well as what they jokingly call their “Romantic Period” honeymoon photographs from 1995-96. What runs throughout is not only various individual-level breakthrough practices of “ascending from the mundane to the immortal,” but also traces of thought deeply connected to history, philosophy, astrology, economics, and other disciplines. Ultimately manifested is their choice to combine the chaotic ruins of overflowing reality with classical algorithms that open perspectives, forging an alternative, Pangu-like contemporary myth.
1. The “Evolving Body” Without Constant Form
“Ah, you’re here.” Dressed in a summer jacket thin as gossamer, Zheng Guogu greeted cheerfully from afar. The day before the opening, the artist stood at the entrance, as if casually introducing his own home garden to an old friend. “This is a calligraphic ocean; there are probably tens of thousands of calligraphic pieces inside.” As Zheng Guogu spoke, curator Huang He-Duo handed over a sheet printed with exhibition information and a spatial map. Overall, the 19 groups of works in the space are connected by a giant infinity symbol “∞,” forming the exhibition’s three main sections and visitor path. A circular platform, which the group calls the “Tea Island,” is set at the central coupling point.
“This is brain nerve tea. Drinking it often can repair you.” The most common sight in a Guangdong home is perhaps the tea table. A pot, two cups, a simple tea set combine to form the core clue initiating this exhibition. Looking again at the powerful characters “Body Beyond the Rule” on the guide, the importance of the “body” here seems already apparent. The tea cup filled, one first appreciates the aroma, then sips; thoughts about the Dao and the natural order arise gently from within. On a hot summer day, in this southern coastal city associated with the fire element, I suddenly found myself immersed in this time and place with the relaxed mood of being invited to “wander a garden”—to drink some tea, to see, to listen, to breathe, to grow. The vast indoor hall surprisingly evoked a wondrous sensation of boundless openness. This rather real feeling of weightlessness reminded me of Zheng Guogu’s “Liao Garden,” another massive real-life heterotopia that retains the absurd spectacle of its conceptual origin, the early strategy game Age of Empires, while also creating a spatially ecological environment as scientifically rigorous and comfortably free as the Pyramid of Khufu. The trembling calligraphic ocean throughout the hall also acts like the succulent plants within such an “organic living body,” serving as its “sensitive nerves.”
At first glance, the written topography here resembles clusters of creeping sea urchins or rippling water patterns—undulating, overlapping, wrinkled, not straightforward, like the aftermath of physical practice. Zheng Guogu explained unhurriedly: “The tea you just drank will replace the water from yesterday lingering in your body. After cycles of repetition, the person can become fluid.” His walking pace was fast, his lean figure radiating exceptional vitality. Compared to a conventional artist, the 55-year-old Zheng Guogu now more like a normal yet unusual neighbor “uncle” who has long cultivated body and mind.
Often, the creator’s state, cognition, and belief system are directly reflected in their work. In the curatorial concept of Zheng Guogu and the Yangjiang Group, the exhibition “Measure the Law with the Body” revolves overall around the three dimensions of “Qing-Li-Fa.” However, it does not manifest a clearly delineated spatial structure, nor does it use excessive labels to create a top-down, explanatory field. Instead, they have given form to reflective analogies concerning media, technology, labor, and consumption, scattered across different topics, eras, and experiences, through three sub-chapters: “Smelt Anew,” “Gathering Spirit,” and “Without Constant Form.” These summarize their creative logic while also proposing methods for re-examining the body.
2. The “Contemporary Body” Unrecognized by Long Stares
Walking through the calligraphic ocean feels like a gradual immersion, unconsciously stretching the rhythm of one’s breath within the space. Over ten thousand calligraphic pieces represent over ten thousand accumulations of writing. Between these tens of thousands of brush lifts and touches, is the Yangjiang Group repeating, or creating? Facing tradition, to what extent should today’s artist copy and inherit, or forge a new path?
The paper ocean underfoot undulates and transforms, subtly altering the topography formed by crumpled rice paper and splashed ink. The gloss of the paint used for writing on the transparent calligraphic curtains hanging around the Tea Island, contrasted with the matte paper, creates random three-dimensional landscapes, allow mechanical devices, indoor air currents, and the movements of people passing through cut them into strange fragments of ink traces, as still retaining the warmth of the Yangjiang Group’s three intense discussions and writing during the installation period. The papers tremble slightly with hidden mechanisms, rhythmically rustling, slowing visitors’ footsteps unconsciously; the body is first taken over by this “low-frequency field,” and the gaze then extends upward finding anchors. The calligraphy here does not attempt to form readable sentences but lets the act of “writing” return to muscles and breath, allowing viewers walking through to silently write their own steps and feel the unformed connections between themselves and the external world.
The “∞” in the exhibition structure aptly bisects the space. One side presents works with a distinct “mediatic” and “technical” quality, termed the “Smelt Anew” section by the group, including photography and video, as well as the wax-dripping installation “Frozen Entity Shop” and the post-meal calligraphy “Thousand-Layer Realm.” The other side is the “Without Constant Form” section, dominated by painting and calligraphy, attempting to find and restore a truly penetrating state of “moving the heart” beneath seemingly traditional techniques. “So many people practice calligraphy daily; they are just mass-producing—is today’s calligraphy just ‘inbreeding’ with yesterday’s, or is calligraphy itself an ocean?” Chen Zaiyan seemed to be narrating, also questioning himself: “Considering one’s own state, and the public nature of the physical act of writing, are the focal points of our current thinking.”
“‘Measure the Law with the Body’ first requires opening oneself, what we often call ‘entering the state’,” Zheng Guogu said, pointing to the hanging calligraphy around the Tea Island, discussing recent insights. “We used to judge by ‘good or bad,’ now we judge by our own state. The standard for ‘good’ is ‘to move’.” Zheng Guogu then began describing his recent “brainwave” experiments involving ancient Chinese calligraphers and 20th-century Western artists. Calligraphy Figures Hitting the Bullseye (2017) is a set of “scientific diagrams” Zheng Guogu derived by observing his own bodily reactions, dividing the human body into three parts from top to bottom: eye/brain, heart, and limbs/hands/feet, corresponding to the positions of signal points (hexagons) reacting within the body. “Look at the calligraphy of Wang Xizhi and Yan Zhenqing, you’ll feel your heart moving,” Zheng Guogu stated. “For example, the Preface to the Orchid Pavilion, the original isn’t large nor very long, but when Wang Xizhi wrote it, heart resonating with heart, he continuously refined and upgraded it, without beginning or end.” He pointed to the single dot in Xu Wei’s distinct bodily hexagon: “But Xu Wei is different. Xu Wei founded his own school, lifting the entire Ming Dynasty at the time, coincide the social formation of his era (early capitalism). His calligraphy requires using the eyes to see, the brain to think—that’s also very contemporary.”
As seen in works like Brain Nerve Lines (Duchamp/Beuys/Giacometti) (2023), this series of paintings also possesses clear symbolism: the form of the U-shaped brain, neural pathways, and conceptual expressions blending measurement and sensation intertwine to create multiple sets of “brainwave” reflexive writings. Clearly, like the steel pyramid installation Pyramid of the Sun (2025) behind them, the Yangjiang Group is not trying to lead viewers into some mystical system, but is testing the reactions these established narratives, objective symbols elicit within their own bodies.
More concrete material presences, like Age of Empires Gold Mine X5, Body in the Overall Memory of 72 Degrees, and This is a Sea of Subversion, ground one from virtual floating: the coolness of metal, the weight of stone, the moisture of succulents—they remind us that the body’s senses have thickness and temperature. Of course, such practice is not without risk: when the ritualization of the body becomes over-packaged, it can devolve into another form of consumption. However, “Measure the Law with the Body” largely avoids this trap—it does not make ritual a burden for the viewer, but uses the most everyday methods to engage visitors, re-awakening the body grown numb from prolonged staring, thereby dissolving the diffuse distortion and nihilism of modern life.
3. The “Future Body” Penetrating the Concrete
Walking along the breath-like route defined by several nodes, turning a corner, Zheng Guogu’s early works My Bride (1995) and On Honeymoon (1996) appear like frozen frames of memory in the dust of time. Viewed now, the wedding dress, the flash, the intimate smiles in the photos carry a somewhat hazy sense of performance (or “posing”), but that was the bodily sample produced by the consumer society of the 1990s. “That was the Romantic body,” Zheng Guogu said with a smile. “People’s task on Earth is ’emotion’; everyone signed an agreement to complete it. The emotion classroom has never changed.” In a space to the side, incredibly romantic portraits are juxtaposed with Das Kapital Football (2009), the latter projecting an underground activity like the Mark Six lottery, using the metaphorical language of horse-racing poetry to depict bodily movement engulfed by capital.
In this oceanic current, the thangka sand paintings Total Transformation, Li Fire Transformation, and Zijue Transformation (2021-2025) scattered on the walls around the Tea Island act as anchoring points within the space. They resemble scrolls in a meditation room, appearing quite vertical and solemn under spotlights, evenly placed at various key points within the flowing field. Delicate silk cloth bears dense, multi-layered color blocks; the image edges are sealed with traditional thangka cloud patterns, lotus pedestals, or frames, which then implant heart wheels, astrological signs, imperial imagery, even inverted virtual symbols within the schema. Viewed closely, one can see the particles and fragments of pigment shimmering slightly in the light; from afar, they resemble symbols of time, possessing an aura that merges the solemnity of religious ritual with contemporary imagination. These strategically placed paintings are not content to be quietly “viewed”; they create pauses at every turn—compelling one, in that instant, to measure the connection between oneself and the image through one’s halted steps, breath, and gaze.
More often, the Yangjiang Group’s brushstrokes, as mirrors of the body, are almost trembling, disordered, even fractured—gazing at Virtual Body, Consumer Body, Social Body, Technological Body, Future Body (2025), the half-meter-high cursive characters seem to shiver, also seeming to sob. The group’s sensitivity to space and capture of concepts is fully embodied in the unrestrained state of their writing. Sun Qinglin and Chen Zaiyan both mentioned folk energy spontaneously; a relative of theirs was once a blacksmith who worked with hardware, and every New Year he would write Spring Festival couplets for the neighborhood—but crucially, he was illiterate, couldn’t read, let alone had a repository of copybooks. “Yet the right to write is connected to nature; calligraphy holds no dust nor class; everyone has the right to write,” they sighed, each taking another sip of tea after speaking.
This sentiment seems to stem from a deep “incompleteness” within the works, allowing them to extend beyond the material dimension and exhibition site towards a intense, shared life experience. The arrangement here clearly isn’t meant to tell a clear story, but rather to break down observation into feasible segments: first the vibration of the overall field, then the standing of the thangkas, followed by the cross-dimensional impact of video and landscape, finally returning to the temperature of the body and tea. On such a path, the viewer completes a reading exercise from “overall impression” to “detailed touch,” each pause arranged as a slow adjustment of perception.
In fact, the artistic practice of the Yangjiang Group more closely resembles creating a set of calibrating “laws”: using writing, video, installation, and individual rituals to restart, purify, and prolong our perception, letting the body become the central medium for understanding the world once again. The “bodily cosmology” proposed by the Yangjiang Group acknowledges the perceptible, operable overall structure within virtual reality, and this tacit practical framework—agreeing to slow down, to incorporate touch and breath into thought, to allow past and future to coexist within one field—both acknowledges the erosion of modernity and consumption, and preserves the romantic imagination of postmodernism. From this perspective, the trio of the Yangjiang Group seem not so much to be “making art,” but rather, in the manner of daily cultivation, continuously verifying the existence of a larger world. Their practice possesses both the rigor of materials and the rhythm of mechanisms, as well as the spontaneity of improvisational writing and the constancy of bodily contemplation.
“The body is like an onion; break one, and there’s another. Material, astral, cosmic, mental, chaotic etheric, void. When the whole is broken, becoming the existence of 24 kinds of lakes, mountains, and living beings, the soul fragments can be uploaded to the overall memory that transcends the whole.” The three members of the Yangjiang Group said with calm certainty, while brewing tea for arriving visitors: “The Yellow Emperor’s Inner Canon records the relationship between the human body and all celestial phenomena. When we feel disconnected, lost, we can still establish connection with the overall universe through the heart’s gate. Art must break through art, not make art within art. When science and technology reach a certain realm, presumably it is also for the sake of ‘art’.” Suddenly, I remembered the “frozen” computer desk I saw upon entering the venue, above which hung a giant code representing the future human: “XR-21”.
*Originally published on Art-Ba-Ba (08-20-2025). [Peer-reviewed]
Yuting (Roxy) TANG 