Arrow Factory is pleased to present a new interactive installation by Beijing-based artist He An entitled Wind Light As a Thief. He’s work plays with states of lightness, darkness and apparitions of the unknown through the seemingly innocuous action of flicking a light switch. Inside Arrow Factory’s space sits a streetlamp that viewers are invited to operate by turning it on and off. Yet the switch not only controls the streetlamp, but it also controls the lights in a shop more than 500 meters away and another light in a non-disclosed public location nearby. Each of the three lamps in their respective places are coupled and outfitted with their own switches. Using transgressive methods to intertwine these disparate locations, He An solicits viewers to traverse the divide between public and private spaces and become willing accomplices in a secret game known only to its participants. Borrowing lyrics from a Nick Cave song for its title, Wind Light As a Thief gestures at the visible and invisible connections that bind the micro-locale of Arrow Factory and the fleeting potential of a telematic glow.

He An’s (b.1970, Wuhan) work explores the idiosyncrasies of social space through installation, photography and video. A graduate of the Hubei Academy of Fine Arts, his works have been exhibited at Tate Liverpool, UCCA Beijing, the Shanghai Duolun Museum of Modern Art, and at Magician-Space, Beijing. He lives and works in Beijing.

Wind Light As a Thief is made possible in part through the support of Beijing Tang Contemporary Art