Chipping away the Layers 被印在墙上的你我

Ever since he first visited in 2012, Portuguese sculptor Alexandre Farto, aka Vhils, has felt a fondness for Shanghai, and the city forms the backdrop for many of his trademark chiseled portraits. On empty lots, construction sites, buildings slated for destruction, and out-of-the-way walls, he’s chipped away concrete and plaster to depict the faces of local residents. Vhils maintains strong ties to China, and in collaboration with the creative group Solid Dogma, he recently made a video in Shanghainese that commemorates his time in the city and pays homage to the people of who make it their home. It’s also a moody meditation on solitude and the difficulty of finding one’s place in the world.

The portraits he creates occupy entire walls, like oversized monochrome photographs, and they call to mind the larger-than-life images of celebrities or political leaders. Yet unlike billboards or propaganda posters, these images show anonymous, everyday people, and by portraying them so prominently and at such a scale, the artist gives them a certain heroic dignity. He also leaves them in the open, where, almost like human faces, they change as they age and erode.

Many of the public artworks that Vhils created were intended to be temporary, and some fell long ago to the wrecking ball. Yet he’s created a series of portraits at a similar scale for display in a museum setting that are now on display at Danysz Gallery in Shanghai. This show, Realm, an expanded version of one previously shown at CAFA in Beijing, allows viewers in Shanghai to experience for themselves these portraits in concrete, wood, and plaster, and to see with fresh eyes the faces of the city around them.