Shang Yixin’s exhibition “— —” at the Beijing Commune presented the artist’s recent formal investigations into staging complex interplays of line, shadow, and light. The exhibition title is derived from an eponymous installation in the show (all works 2016), which features more than twenty flashlights positioned in a row, all facing a wall. The flashlights, each installed at a slightly different angle, illuminated a single line while simultaneously casting sporadic shapes and haloed shadows of various sizes against the wall. Shang set the flashlights on machines that moved gently from