Chen Sung-Chih: Index: Solo Exhibition

YIRI ARTS Jakarta is currently presenting Index, Taiwanese artist Chen Sung-Chih's first solo exhibition in Jakarta, on view from August 15 to September 20, 2026.

This exhibition brings together a new body of installation and mixed-media works, continuing Chen Sung-Chih's long-term investigation into the relationships between material, time, and transformation. Rather than using materials to represent specific images or narratives, Chen works through simple, repetitive actions such as folding, bleaching, covering, pressing, and layering paper, fabric, wood, and everyday objects. Over time, these processes gradually alter the state of the materials, allowing them to retain traces of the actions and events that have acted upon them.

The title Index refers not to a catalogue or system of classification, but to the idea of a trace. In semiotics, an index is a sign formed through direct contact with an event. Cracks, stains, folds, and abrasions in Chen's works are therefore not treated as imperfections, but as evidence of time, action, and physical encounter. Rather than reconstructing the events behind these marks, the exhibition invites viewers to consider how material can carry time and preserve traces of what has taken place.

The exhibition unfolds across two gallery spaces. The first presents the site-specific installation Untitled (Surface) (2026), in which fabric and virgin pulp intervene across the gallery floor, transforming the space into a material field shaped by accumulated traces. The second gallery brings together a selection of mixed-media works incorporating bleached fabric, wood, dust, paper, soap, toner, and metal, further exploring how time and physical processes become embedded within material and form an inseparable part of the work.