Yu Honglei's Post-Internet Sculptures Explore Digital Alienation at Berlin Gallery

Yu Honglei presented seven untitled bronze-colored sculptures at Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler in Berlin from April 25 to June 23, 2018. The Mongolian-born, Beijing-based artist created works resembling speculative ideograms for unnamed feelings, with forms recalling cartoon hearts, confused eggs, jellyfish, warthogs, and fish. These sculptures were displayed on cubic orange plinths in sequential rows, embodying a meme-like quality of progressive mutation. A grey-and-black totem pole composed of stacked silvery alien heads without mouths occupied the same space. Another room featured a stern male head on orange funnel forms and eight silvery slabs showing the same head with varied expressions. A color-reversed video showed dough being thrown to the floor with an audible splat rhythm, intercut with wild boar footage, representing online browsing's hypnotic disjunction. Yu's work reflects digitally driven culture where visual experience supersedes reading, creating an alienating, morphing presence that deactivates analytical thought. His sculptures intentionally lack titles, abandoning language to emphasize purely visual confusion. The exhibition was reviewed in the Summer 2018 issue of ArtReview Asia.