XU Fang

Fang Xu’s practice revolves around a non-oppositional understanding of structure. In their work, oppositions are not conflicts that require resolution, but parallel outcomes of the same life process operating at different scales. Any action perceived as reasonable, necessary, or benevolent inevitably entails acts of appropriation, exclusion, and sacrifice at the very moment its legitimacy is established.

Within Fang Xu’s installation practice, action is continuous yet leads to no exit. Ants endlessly search for a way out inside light boxes; the system does not persist through collapse or enforced stability, but through limitation. From life to death, action is constantly propelled forward, yet its meaning does not lie in arrival, but in the compelled continuity of the process itself.

Plants continue to grow while being cut. The system is sustained through restriction rather than destruction. In this practice, cutting and protection do not negate one another. Survival itself implies ongoing absorption, transformation, and consumption, while distinctions between “good” and “evil” stem more from anthropocentric value judgments than from the internal logic of life’s operations.

Fang Xu’s work has been exhibited at venues including the Grand Palais Éphémère in Paris and Galerie Hausgeburt in Germany. Their long-term practice consistently centers on systems, cycles, and structures of life.