The installation work Poppy No.2 by artist Xu Zhongmin exhibited at Today Art Museum Photo: Today Art Museum

By Xu Liuliu

Entering artist Xu Zhongmin's Solo Exhibition at Today Art Museum, you might wonder if you'd accidentally walked into a giant factory workshop with dark lights and several strange machines shooting out laser lights with noises.

With the help of the staff, I stepped on the ladder of a giant oil-tank-like thing and climbed on the top, seeing numerous plastic dolls climbing from the bottom to the top and over the ladder to the other side.

The oil-tank-like thing is one of Xu's two latest installations called Ladder, the other one Poppy. Ladder continues to tell us about people's confusions and feelings of loss in modern society using Xu's signature approaches. Themes of "walking" and "recycling" are commonly seen in most of his works including Bridge, Egg Shape and Rotating Mountain, stimulating viewers to make them reassess their views about culture and life.

"Life is like a journey. Although you see different cultures and different people, you still need to think what you are doing. And finally you will see the changes in yourself, though always there are things to make you excited and things that make you tired," Xu said.

Born in Sichuan Province in 1961, Xu first rose to fame with print paintings. He spent 12 years in London as a visiting artist at The Royal College of Art and has exhibited art creations there since 1992. He gradually changed his approach to creating installations. After he returned to China in 2004, his art works have brought endless surprise and insights with his astonishing mechanical installations.

He says walking is like a bridge between the ancient civilizations that we trust and the modern society that we are chasing after.

"These works carried an expression that traveled beyond time and space. So people's life can be considered as an endless recycling and repeating process in general," Xu said.

Where: Today Art Museum

When: Until April 12

Tickets: Free