Becoming the Other—On Silence, Voice, and the Ethics of Representation
Dan Er: Greetings
2025.03.22—06.15
Artist：Dan Er
Curators：Wang Jianan, Chen Yindi
MACA will present artist Dan Er's solo exhibition Dan Er: Greetings, on view from March 22 through June 15, 2025. The exhibition explores the language-like properties hidden within a diversity of materials. Through decorative patterns, folk dance, and carved stucco, Dan Er's work attempts to reveal the historical and "dialectal" variations in visual languages. Rather than archaeological and research-based methods, the artist focuses on "embodied" learning to acquire an entirely new language and understand the variations in its vocabulary, grammar, and structures, thereby grasping the nuanced differences across regions and cultures. Most importantly, by "speaking" this language, she brings it to life.
Greetings No.1: Image Library (2022) serves as the cornerstone of the artist's recent practice. Dan Er collected this repository of wooden printing stamps over a long period of time. Having observed and studied these patterns day after day, Dan Er plays with their angle to generate endless possibilities. Following this method of expanded patternmaking, she has created a variety of drawings, sculptures, and videos that demonstrate her thinking about whole and part, center and periphery, continuity and interruption.
Greetings No.7 (2024), Greetings No.8 (2024), and Greetings No.9 (2024) document Dan Er's dance performances. In these videos, we witness how the spirit of a culture momentarily occupies the artist's body and manifests itself through the language of her physical movement. Here, the artist adopts a strategy of "yielding," positioning herself as a novice and surrendering to the otherness of a different culture. By contrast, in the plastic and metal sculptures in Greetings No.10 (2024), we see how histories of materials are erased and ultimately homogenized. The historical depth of plaster is replaced by the flatness of industrial ready-mades, just as languages and expressions are canceled, leaving only the endlessly self-replicating sky in Greetings No.6 (2024).
In Greetings, Dan Er seems rather to have taken on a translator's duties: by "listening," she experiences the richly varied tonalities and subtleties of an unfamiliar language. She is fully aware of her own "ignorance," yet she chooses to work within its limitations. The artist translates through her body, offering a simple, unadorned greeting: perhaps this is the most appropriate tone she could find.
Dan Er: Greetings is curated by MACA Associate Curator Wang Jianan and Assistant Curator Chen Yindi.
About the Artist
Dan Er
Dan Er is an independent artist. Born in 1983 in Northern Shaanxi, China, she currently lives and works in Hebei.
About the Curators
Wang Jianan
Wang Jianan is the Associate Curator and Researcher at MACA.
Chen Yindi
Chen Yindi is the Assistant Curator and Researcher at MACA. Her research explores how nature has been seen and represented in different cultures, especially in relation to the intersections of mythologies and queer ecology.
Exhibition Photos
Dan Er, Greetings No. 1-158, 2022, handmade Xuan paper, Indian ink, wooden printing stamps, each 364×146 cm, 6 in total. Dan Er: Greetings, installation view, MACA, 2025. Photo: Yang Hao
Dan Er: Greetings, installation view, MACA, 2025. Photo: Yang Hao
Dan Er, Greetings No. 1 Image Library, 2022, U.K. Somerset printmaking paper (velvet surface), Indian ink, wooden printing stamps, 24K gold foil, silver foil, each 75.5×57 cm, 63 in total. Dan Er: Greetings, installation view, MACA, 2025. Photo: Yang Hao
Dan Er, Greetings No. 1 Image Library, 2022, U.K. Somerset printmaking paper (velvet surface), Indian ink, wooden printing stamps, 24K gold foil, silver foil, each 75.5×57 cm, 63 in total. Dan Er: Greetings, installation view, MACA, 2025. Photo: Yang Hao
Dan Er, Greetings No. 1 Image Library, 2022, U.K. Somerset printmaking paper (velvet surface), Indian ink, wooden printing stamps, 24K gold foil, silver foil, each 75.5×57 cm, 63 in total. Dan Er: Greetings, installation view, MACA, 2025. Photo: Yang Hao
Dan Er: Greetings, installation view, MACA, 2025. Photo: Yang Hao
Dan Er, Greetings No. 2, 2018-2025, handmade Xuan paper, pastel, each 150×99 cm, 2 in total. Dan Er: Greetings, installation view, MACA, 2025. Photo: Yang Hao
Dan Er, Greetings No. 2, 2018-2025, handmade Xuan paper, pastel, each 150×99 cm, 2 in total. Dan Er: Greetings, installation view, MACA, 2025. Photo: Yang Hao
Dan Er, Greetings No. 2, 2018-2025, handmade Xuan paper, pastel, each 150×99 cm, 2 in total. Dan Er: Greetings, installation view, MACA, 2025. Photo: Yang Hao
Dan Er: Greetings, installation view, MACA, 2025. Photo: Yang Hao
Dan Er, Greetings No. 6, 2024, UV printing on transparent PET sheet, 100×5000 cm, supported by MACA. Dan Er: Greetings, installation view, MACA, 2025. Photo: Yang Hao
Dan Er, Greetings No. 10, 2024, matte paint on polyvinyl chloride decorative cornice lines, dimensions variable, supported by MACA. Dan Er: Greetings, installation view, MACA, 2025. Photo: Yang Hao
Dan Er: Greetings, installation view, MACA, 2025. Photo: Yang Hao
Dan Er: Greetings, installation view, MACA, 2025. Photo: Yang Hao
Dan Er, Greetings No. 3, 2025, UV printing on red copper sheets, each 100×150 cm, 4 in total, supported by MACA. Dan Er: Greetings, installation view, MACA, 2025. Photo: Yang Hao
Dan Er: Greetings, installation view, MACA, 2025. Photo: Yang Hao
Dan Er, Greetings No. 5, 2025, plaster, dimensions variable, supported by MACA. Dan Er: Greetings, installation view, MACA, 2025. Photo: Yang Hao
Dan Er: Greetings, installation view, MACA, 2025. Photo: Yang Hao
Dan Er, Greetings No. 5, 2025, plaster, dimensions variable, supported by MACA. Dan Er: Greetings, installation view, MACA, 2025. Photo: Yang Hao
Dan Er, Greetings No. 8, 2024, six-channel video, black and white, no sound, duration variable, supported by MACA and Hunsand Space. Dan Er: Greetings, installation view, MACA, 2025. Photo: Yang Hao
Dan Er: Greetings, installation view, MACA, 2025. Photo: Yang Hao
Dan Er, Greetings No. 10, 2024, matte paint on polyvinyl chloride decorative cornice lines, dimensions variable, supported by MACA. Dan Er: Greetings, installation view, MACA, 2025. Photo: Yang Hao
Dan Er, Greetings No. 10, 2024, matte paint on polyvinyl chloride decorative cornice lines, dimensions variable, supported by MACA. Dan Er: Greetings, installation view, MACA, 2025. Photo: Yang Hao
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