Patternmaker's Maze

"Assuming that the global art industry, which revolves around everything from creation to collection, is a maze, then are the practitioners the ones setting it up or the ones finding a way out? Are we able to choose? How do we navigate through the tangled paths in this maze?"  – Meng Xianhui, writer, art critic and curator of Patternmaker's Maze.

Taking its name from the labyrinth in the fantasy novel series A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin, the group exhibition Patternmaker’s Maze attests to the complexity with which art and the artists engage in reality and the spiritual world. Extending beyond their physical existence, the artworks in this exhibition are recognised as both receivers and active contributors within a maze of socio-political, economic, and natural forces. They interact with the existing world of signs, visuality, and materiality while simultaneously questioning its structures and boundaries, breaking new grounds for interpreting the past, experiencing the present, and shaping the future.

In A Song of Ice and Fire, it is said that “only those who learn to walk [the maze] properly will find wisdom.” Presented in two chapters, ‘Maze’ and ‘Patternmakers’, this exhibition brings together a group of artists who speak to the challenges and inspirations in the process of navigating and transforming the art world, utilising and being subject to the power dynamics within and across distinct social fields. The artworks presented in Lisson’s Shanghai gallery share a space of conversation, interweaving into a larger collective narrative while preserving their unique perspectives of being in the world.