Exhibition
Research
VicE, RSO
Artist: No.1 House of Finnish Pine、Ke Xu
Finnish pine, paper, staples
2025
(1) Verso – a brand name for Finnish pine sawn timber, often stamped on the cross-section of the wood.
(2) verso – the left page of an open book; the back side of a loose sheet of paper. Opposite of recto.
In industrial production lines, wood and paper are endowed with their own material characteristics, and produced in standardized specifications. Both originate from trees and are democratic materials. VicE, RSO looks back along the production line and timeline (see verso), imagining a tacit dialogue between wood and paper through mutual imitation based on "format" and "thickness."
When paper begins to imitate wood, the soft moves towards solidity; when wood imagines itself as paper, the solid bends towards change. When both paper and wood dream of the same Finnish pine tree, we fabricate “VicE, RSO," a dynamic, dialectical state of shared roots. Inspired by “vice versa", within interdependent relationships and fluid mediums, VicE, RSO represents the immediate, the hidden, the escape, and the fictional—the “other side (vice verso)" that either aligns with or opposes reality.
(Text excerpted from the description of Ke Xu's work)
*No.1 House of Finnish Pine commissions artist Ke Xu to create
2025
(1) Verso – a brand name for Finnish pine sawn timber, often stamped on the cross-section of the wood.
(2) verso – the left page of an open book; the back side of a loose sheet of paper. Opposite of recto.
In industrial production lines, wood and paper are endowed with their own material characteristics, and produced in standardized specifications. Both originate from trees and are democratic materials. VicE, RSO looks back along the production line and timeline (see verso), imagining a tacit dialogue between wood and paper through mutual imitation based on "format" and "thickness."
When paper begins to imitate wood, the soft moves towards solidity; when wood imagines itself as paper, the solid bends towards change. When both paper and wood dream of the same Finnish pine tree, we fabricate “VicE, RSO," a dynamic, dialectical state of shared roots. Inspired by “vice versa", within interdependent relationships and fluid mediums, VicE, RSO represents the immediate, the hidden, the escape, and the fictional—the “other side (vice verso)" that either aligns with or opposes reality.
(Text excerpted from the description of Ke Xu's work)
Photography: Ke Xu
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