SPURS Gallery is honored to present Fang Lu & Arie Kishon’s solo exhibition, “Somewhere in the center, I created you”, opening on January 4, 2025. The exhibition features the latest film Shechina (2025) by the two artists in Gallery I, and Kishon’s drawings, paintings and a furniture design Diamond Wave Chair (2025) in Gallery II on the second floor.

The title of the exhibition, “Somewhere in the center, I created you”, is by the same name as one of the series of drawings of Kishon. In the Chinese title “Xu Mi” refers to “The Mount Sumeru”, which is the center of the world and the dwelling place of the gods in Hindu and Buddhist cosmologies. The Buddhist word “Sumeru” echoes the word Shechina (Shekhinah) in Hebrew, which in the Jewish tradition also represents the feminine aspect of God and the presence of God in a place or an occasion. The title of the film therefore takes its name from Shechina.

Shechina is a work about pain and healing in the modern era. It is a 76-minute film produced by Fang Lu and Arie Kishon in the last two years. The production of the work takes place in Tel Aviv, Guangzhou, Brooklyn and Beacon. The film is comprised both of documentary and fictional parts, intertwined throughout the entire piece. In many traditions it is argued that we are in an age of darkness, and that salvation is yet to come. The world is in a state of lack, because the feminine aspect of God is in exile. And so, God, the masculine, is always yearning for the Shechina, the feminine, to reappear and assume its rightful place in the universe, unifying both male and female and bringing peace and harmony to the world. Based on this primordial duality, this separation to male and female in the spiritual realm, the film makes up the fictional characters Hechina (cast by artist Xu Tan) and Shechina (cast by Mihal Goldstein) as the male and female aspects of God. Hechina dwells in an empty building outside of the suburbs, between where the city ends and forest begins. From this special location he receives testimonies of peoples’ suffering. By the presence and grace of Shechina, he can engage in a creative act to aid people in restoring balance.

Arie Kishon’s exploration of reality beyond the five senses, either through scripture from across the globe, personal experience, or by relating to the new, emerging science of BioGeometry, serve as the background for the creation of the Diamond Wave Chair exhibiting in Gallery II. The chair can be used either as a single piece, or as an ensemble, providing several combinations utilizing the same design—two chairs can be put together to form a day bed, while four pieces can be joined together to form a whole king size bed. For the purpose of this installation, this chair is used for the person sitting in it to integrate the energy of the space into their own system. The physical attributes of the chair are in accordance with design elements that work towards maximizing beneficial, life sustaining energy.

Also showing on the second floor are Kishon’s drawings and paintings on rice paper. The abstract paintings and drawings deal with the realm that exists in the gap between physical reality and its divine source. One example for such a phenomenon, that of existence in between these two realms is language, which is being used in the paintings titled Come, it’s the end of the world (2020), and All the night I can afford (2021). The line drawings are four groups of seven drawings, titled Somewhere in the center, I made you; Somewhere in the center, I formed you; Somewhere in the center, I created you; Somewhere in the center, I stilled you. The repetition of titles is meant to be like mantra, that resonates with the repetition of the lines in the drawing. These drawing are the process of a meditative journey that the artist is engaged in and invites viewers to be a part of.