He wrote me that the Japanese secret—what Lévi-Strauss
had called the poignancy of things—implied the faculty of
communion with things, of entering into them, of being
them for a moment. It was normal that in their turn they
should be like us: perishable and immortal.

Chris Marker, Sans Soleil

MOTINTERNATIONAL Brussels is delighted to present
Aishan Yu's first solo exhibition with the gallery. Continuing
her ongoing series Others, the artist will present recent
drawings. Yu re-interprets historical documentary
photographs, such as the works of the German
photographer Hedda Morrisson, who travelled extensively
throughout China in the early 20th century. The artist's
drawings are feats of incredible detail and precision, and via
this method she seeks to overcome the distance of the
'Others' in the title; to meet the subject and bring about a
moment of intimacy, even reciprocity. The act of copying
becomes a form of immersion, even as the anonymity
and ambiguity of the title is upheld. Her methodical drawing
process becomes a way to take possession of interwoven
histories, technologies and traditions, creating a form that
is her own.

In images such as Others 18, the artist's meticulous,
photorealistic transcription of the original (Henry Arthur
Herbert's Interior, ca, 1865 in 'The Golden Age of
Photography') is disrupted by smudged pencil smears
around the edge of the image, revealing the artist's hand.
Placing importance on temporality, Yu disrupts any sense of
nostalgia with marks of the present; spots of paint or lines
of ink juxtapose the quick hand with the slow.