Exhibition Dates: April 5 – 7, 2025
Location: M P Birla Millennium Art Gallery
Curated by Y Manifesto in collaboration with M P Birla Millennium Art Gallery, with Yuran Lin as the executive curator, Partly Cloudy | 半云 is a curatorial exploration of meteorological phenomena as a conceptual framework for understanding the complexities of identity, perception, and existential ambiguity. The exhibition assembles a diverse group of contemporary artists, including Anning Song, Bilan Liu, Jing Zhou, Jingsi Chen, Junxian Pan, Kewei Zhao, Lexiong Ying, Liying Peng, Lutong Li, Tremoring Steel(Xinyue Gao), Witty Wang, Xianghan Wang, Yongkang Yu, Zhihao Lin, and Yuchu Zhao, alongside a collective artistic group by Jiawen Zhu, Ziqing Chu, Ying Huang, and Yunyi Zhang.
The concept of “partly cloudy” articulates a state of liminality—an intermediary condition neither entirely illuminated nor wholly obscured. It is within this interstitial domain that the exhibition seeks to probe the epistemological and phenomenological dimensions of human experience. Through a multiplicity of mediums, including painting, photography, sculpture, installation, video, and new media, the works engage in a critical discourse on the dialectics of clarity and obscurity, stability and flux, selfhood and alterity.
Drawing from contemporary philosophical discourses, Partly Cloudy aligns with the theoretical interventions of thinkers such as Timothy Morton, whose concept of “blurred boundaries” challenges rigid ontological demarcations. The exhibition interrogates the constructed nature of binarism and embraces an ontology of indeterminacy, positioning ambiguity not as an impediment to knowledge but as an epistemic space of generative potential.
The exhibition further examines the spatial and temporal dynamics of perception. How do we situate ourselves within the continuum of light and shadow, knowledge and uncertainty? What does it mean to exist in a world that resists categorical stability? By foregrounding these inquiries, Partly Cloudy not only reflects contemporary concerns regarding subjectivity and perception but also contributes to broader conversations on the fluidity of contemporary existence.
Rather than offering a resolution, Partly Cloudy posits an ongoing engagement with the inherent contingencies of the world. It challenges the viewer to navigate the nuanced interplay of materiality and immateriality, presence and absence, inviting an ontological re-examination of the conditions that define human experience.
