"Echoes of a Voyage
—— Lyu Zhi-qiang"
Exhibition Time: March 13, 2026 — April 20, 2026
Exhibition Venue: Hall C, 2nd Floor, CAFA Art Museum
"Returning is the movement of the Dao." What the Tao Te Ching states forms a time‑transcending resonance with the operational logic of the Loop in electronic music: the movement of the Dao is reversal, an eternal tendency to return to itself. For the artist Lü Zhiqiang, the echo of this ancient image manifests most explicitly in the repeated practice of linear perspective using the rope‑and‑ink method, and also emerges in a more circuitous way through years of excavation and re‑composition of the soundscapes along his journey.
In modern electronic music, the Loop is not merely a technical device but rather an ontological declaration. It breaks with the linear structure of Western classical music—beginning–development–climax–ending—and its repetitive beats and melodies outline a non‑linear, circular model of time. Nietzsche’s idea of the eternal recurrence finds an auditory re‑presentation here:
“The eternal hourglass of existence will keep turning, and you are but a grain of dust within it.”Trapped in a circular orbit, should the individual feel agony or ecstasy? This is the Hamlet‑question of modern life.
An old Volkswagen Jetta is the materialization of this question: every engine start, every journey marked by its tire tracks, constitutes a subjective response to eternal recurrence. During a trip to revisit the First Automobile Works in Changchun, the artist learned that the production line that assembled this car had a history of circulation—from Germany to the United States and then to China. To achieve localized production, Chinese workers had creatively modified this weathered line in countless ways. All this has silently provided a contemporary footnote to Nietzsche’s thesis: as Deleuze argued, the Same inevitably generates Difference in circulation, much like lines drawn strictly according to the rules of perspective still show subtle shifts with every snap of the inked line. The Loop of life plays on endlessly. The industrial glory of yesterday, once celebrated in early automobile advertisements, has faded, yet beneath the worn paint emerges an eternal structure. No matter how many cycles it undergoes, the soul of this “German car” is undeniably infused with the spirit of northern China.
The car’s hybrid lineage also mirrors the metaphor of identity in contemporary culture: the artist’s identity is no longer a singular, ontological definition. In the prismatic world of life, he is a car owner, driver, traveler; a sound collector, DJ, and stage designer; a student of perspective and a spatial surveyor; and at the same time, a teacher within the academic system, whose duty often involves negotiating a spiral Loop between inheritance and creation, discipline and enlightenment. These parallel fragments of experience are like scattered stars, yet when consciously integrated into the subject‑identity of “artist,” an orderly constellation‑like map emerges from chaos. In fact, this map points precisely to what Benjamin called “the possibility of reshaping experience”—that is, “the liberation of historical energy confined within the social form of art as an independent entity.” Here, art as aesthetic experience has long become an abrupt method of action: it flows into the path toward the everyday with the flexible posture of perception, reflection, and intervention, introducing liberating energy into a new dimension of historical life.
Wang Wenting
March 2026
Selected Previous Works
《Mohemann's Living Room》个人项目，2020
A Long Road, Sound Installation, Stereo, 1 hour 11 minutes, 2019
Admonition sound installation, 3-channel, 29'39", 2017
"Gaze/Inhibition", watercolor paper, Chinese ink, aluminum-plastic panel, steel, alkyd paint, 180120cm, 70*70*100cm (installation part), 2015
Scavenger, Installation, Performance, Urban Waste, 2012
Modern Tate Museum, Waste from the Art District, 350cm × 410cm × 360cm, 2011
Cabin, Tree Branches, 350cm × 200cm × 260cm, 2010
Crawler, Installation & Research Documentation, Found Objects, Steel, 900cm×1200cm×350cm, 2009
Exhibition team
| Curator |
Wang Wenting
She teaches at the School of Art Administration and Education, Central Academy of Fine Arts. The exhibitions and cultural activities she has participated in curating include "Return: Sino-German Young Artists' Group Exhibition", "The Myth of Documenta — Arnold Bode and His Successors", "Searching for Utopia — Sino-German Curators' Workshop", "Transformation Wandlung — Kathrin von Rechenberg and He Jian Dual Exhibition", etc.
| Artist |
Lv Zhiqiang
Born in Mohe County, Heilongjiang Province, he graduated from the School of Experimental Art, Central Academy of Fine Arts, and currently teaches there. He has extensively used materialized materials for socially engaged creations, preferring to carry out his work through field investigations and practice. He has also conducted research and painting with a focus on the study of Western perspective, and his recent works have paid attention to sound as a material.
He has had solo projects such as "Mohemann’s Living Room" (C5CNM, Beijing, 2020) and "The Long Road Ahead" (Telescope Art Studio, Beijing, 2019). Some of his group exhibitions include "Sense of Touch – Group Exhibition of Young Artists from the School of Experimental Art, Central Academy of Fine Arts" (Taoxichuan Art Museum, Jingdezhen, 2021); "A Patchwork Leviathan" (Bridge Projects, Los Angeles, 2020); "There is a Form" (Song Art Museum, Beijing); "Anren Biennale" (Sichuan, 2017); "'Relay' Series Exhibition – Art Re-Long March" (National Art Museum of China, Beijing, 2016); and "The 12th National Art Exhibition" (Today Art Museum, Beijing, 2014), among others.
Exhibition Information
“声回路转（Echoes of a Voyage）——吕智强个人项目”
展览时间：2026年3月13日—4月20日
展览地点：中央美术学院美术馆2层C展厅
主办：
中央美术学院美术馆
中央美术学院党委教师工作部（人事处）
中央美术学院教师发展中心
学术主持：冯梦波
策展人：王文婷
艺术家：吕智强
视觉设计：赵序
主编 / 何一沙
责编 / 杜隐珠
