Soil is the cradle from which life emerges in the natural world, and the final resting place where fallen leaves and organic debris meet their end. It also embodies humanity's primal urge to create—painting with mud and molding clay into shapes may have been our earliest artistic practices.

Situated in the cave-like Gallery 1, this work deliberately evokes such primitivity. The artist sculpted clay into simple forms resembling benches and chairs, which appear to bear the patina of years of use, as if they have witnessed the passage of an immense span of time. In this space, soil is both material and subject; it is the artistic medium and a reference to the main substance that makes up the “Dark Surfaces” of the exhibition title—a transformative realm where all things may decompose and be reborn.

Composed of steel rebar and clay, this monumental installation stands as the exhibition’s centerpiece. It continues and expands upon Yang Xinguang’s recent experiments using rebar in artworks. Here, the material—which typically provides the rigid, functional skeleton behind the urban landscape—is forced to submit to the organic logic of botanical growth. Bent into spirals and fractal sequences, it acquires the serpentine flexibility of vines. Meanwhile, sculpted by hand and tempered by fire, clay is transformed into plump, alluring “fruits” enveloped by the steel’s winding embrace.

This set of abstract sculptures suggests an aesthetic syntax that manifests itself in multiple forms: the spiral structures which reappear across the universe; plant life’s capacity to intertwine and strangle; and the allure and beauty found in inter-species interactions. Continuing his investigation into the dialectical relationship between the artificial and the natural, here Yang presents a subtle yet unsettling dislocation between the two.

Here the artist has sculpted clay into the form of insect nests, their interiors hollow and dark. The miniature architecture of insect nests can be found throughout the “litter layer.” Inside such nests, insects excavate, build, and reproduce, generating an invisible cycle of life just below the earth’s surface. This is an unobserved space, a hidden world of microscopic life. By enlarging these ecological cavities, the artist offers us a rare glimpse into often overlooked subterranean habitats.

In an echo of the work located in Gallery 1, these hollow, shadowed forms also conjure imagery of caves—the most primitive of human dwellings, inhabited before the dawn of civilization.

The artist wraps fallen leaves in layer upon layer of paint until they become smooth and round, their original botanical forms no longer discernible, almost as if they have been mummified. He then arranges these sealed leaves together with the packing crates used to transport them, creating a monument—one that pays tribute to dead leaves.

Monuments are the quintessential human structure dedicated to resisting oblivion. Fallen leaves ought to return to the soil and disappear into the cycles of the “litter layer,” yet the intervention of paint “rescues” them from these processes—or, from another perspective, “imprisons” them. Each leaf becomes a miniature mummy: death is preserved, and the leaves are deprived of the possibility of transformation into new life. The monumental form endows these insignificant dry leaves with dignity and commemorative weight, yet also draws out a sense of absurdity. Here, the artist reveals the paradox inherent to human intervention in the natural process of decomposition: in order to commemorate nature, we interrupt it.

In this work, Yang Xinguang covers fallen leaves in colored paint and places them on top of camouflage fabric. Humans invented camouflage as a means of concealment, enabling one to blend into environments by mimicking nature’s mottled textures. However, its use almost always points to war and violence, implying conquest rather than fusion.

Here Yang crafts an ingenious inversion: the paint-covered fallen leaves are “camouflaged” as artificial materials, which blocks them from decomposing and makes them unable to return to the soil; the camouflage fabric, meanwhile, replaces the actual ground, becoming an artificial “litter layer.” A natural cycle is thus disrupted. The juxtaposition of the two materials points to the hidden desire for control that underlies humanity’s interventions in nature.

Yang Xinguang’s video recordings of green foxtail grass and drifting dust register traces left in the wake of passing winds. Dry, weightless, and elusive, the subjects of these works are among the most unremarkable entities that exist in the natural world. Constantly on the verge of fading away, here they are momentarily held in sight through the medium of video.

This video work is presented on a screen supported by a fence-like structure made of withered tree branches. In the video footage, the artist imitates the calls of wild animals, staging a “duet” that echoes through mountains. The work’s title refers to an iconic archetype within Chinese literati tradition: “lofty scholars” were individuals who retreated into the wilderness, detached themselves from worldly affairs, and spiritually communed with the universe. However, in Yang’s work the “scholar” abandons the refined elegance of reciting poetry to instead communicate with nature through animalistic howls. This apparent “regression” paradoxically brings him closer to the primal state of the natural world, as well as the unity with all existence that the “lofty scholars” sought to attain.

This group of tall clay vessels is showcased on the museum’s terrace. While their bases take on biomorphic forms—resembling plants, fruits, or nests—the openings above are filled with sticks and leaves on the verge of decay. The artist invites viewers to collect plants from the side of the road or nearby natural environments and insert them into the vessels. The fact that they may participate in the work through such a simple, everyday act also suggests that the obstruction of natural decomposition is, at times, nothing more out of the ordinary than this.

To create these works, Yang Xinguang first collected tumbleweeds that had been blown to a city’s outskirts, then combined them with bent rebar. Standing tall upon the beach, they resemble living things. The rebar frameworks recall human skeletons, while wild grasses and wood stand in for flesh and spirit. Under the effects of the sea breeze and other environmental factors, the organic materials will gradually grow weathered or simply be blown away. As such, these works will complete—within nature—the degradation of their own materials.

The title “Warriors” produces a contrast: wild grass is among the most easily overlooked of plants, yet here it is placed in a historic posture and endowed with a grand title. As they stand by the sea, the artworks’ organic materials slowly dissipate, with only the rebar skeletons remaining, like suits of armor emptied out by the wind.