/Exhibition/
The Bitterest Ice Cream
Role: Curator
Artists: Shengjie Jiang and Alex (Yeying) Wen
Time: 2026/7/3-2026/7/10
Address: FLOHAUS Gallery, 209 WEST 38TH STREET, NEW YORK
In In Praise of Shadows, Jun'ichirō Tanizaki describes beauty as something that exists between light and shadow. It does not emerge from the object itself, but from ambiguity, afterglow, and those aspects that can never be fully illuminated. Rather than clarity and certainty, shadow attends to things that remain unfinished, unresolved, and not yet fully defined.
“The bitterest ice cream in the world” may be one such thing. Bitterness does not remain on the tongue forever. It slowly melts, loses its original form, is swallowed, and eventually becomes part of the body. Emotions often follow a similar path. They are neither fully preserved nor entirely lost; instead, they settle over time, lingering as an aftertaste that is difficult to name yet impossible to completely forget.
The Bitterest Ice Cream explores how emotions come to reside within objects. In Shengjie Jiang’s paintings, sliced fruit, half-eaten cakes, empty tableware, and animals passing through gardens create a suspended condition in which something has already happened, something is in the process of leaving, and yet something remains. In Alex Wen’s practice, books, paper, garments, and archival forms offer another mode of holding feeling. Folded, bound, stacked, and stored, these objects become vessels through which memory and emotion are carried forward.
Food melts, paper yellows, and objects are put away, misplaced, or forgotten. Yet certain feelings continue to cling to them, persisting long after their original moment has passed. Here, sweetness is not a symbol of happiness, nor is bitterness the endpoint of sorrow. Preservation does not necessarily mean retention, just as disappearance does not necessarily mean absence. Through their distinct practices, Jiang and Wen invite viewers to consider how emotions endure—not despite change, but through it.
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