Juxtaposition is where it’s at for a new mini exhibition running in Nanjing that will have you thinking about 21st Century life in alternate ways.
For how do simple building blocks resonate so deeply that they become fundamental to a creator?
Colombian Kmilo Jiménez is a part-time volleyball coach at Nanjing International School. He’s also a former mechanical engineer who worked for almost 10 years in the oil and gas industry. And he’s in love with his dog. And Lego. All that, to some, may be forgivable, but the credentials also go some way to accounting for the dimensionally-challenging artwork presented herein.
But why put them together in an art exhibition? The answer is found within our world itself. Complexity. If art (and media, this correspondent would argue) is a reflection of real life, then “Life, Love and Loss” by Jiménez expresses both our urbanism and our increased longing for connection with the natural world.
Both are nods to the very opposite; the notion of simplicity, something of which we could do with a lot more in our fast-paced world (spoiler alert: re. the December issue of The Nanjinger).
That’s what pushes us to reconcile the Lego, modernity, childhood innocence and the sketches of a dog which lie at the heart of this exhibition.
It’s quite a handful. In a very small space. Only six people at a time were granted entry at the exhibition’s opening on 31 August. Get out quick; there’s a queue, you know?
“Life, Love and Loss” runs until 20 October at X Space Gallery in Unit 201, 2 Guyilang, Xinjiekou 新街口古衣廊2号201 XSPACE艺术空间.
