YES, APOCALYPSE YES TODAY
at fffriedrich
Frankfurt zam Main, Germany
Exhibition text
The idea of the Apocalypse exists as a linguistic problem: an infinite chain of conversations about the End, postponed into an undefined future. If the Apocalypse were truly to begin, there would be no one left to describe it and nothing left to describe. The discourse of the End is a bare fiction itself: a textual mirage whose meaning evaporates at the moment of its realization. In the exhibition Yes, Apocalypse Yes Now, Zexuan Liu and Javier Gutiérrez Navarro shift this question from language to the physical and the bodily, returning to the original meaning of the word Apocalypse, derived from the Greek apokalypsis—revelation, unveiling, exposure: the uncovering of parts of the body usually kept hidden. The exhibition unfolds in two parts. It begins in the white cube, sealed off from the outside world by membranes of the digestive tract. Inside the white cube, teeth appear as a starting point of the digestive system—primary instruments for chewing food. You will rarely find four roots in teeth today; this root system traces a disappearance that has already occurred—it was typical for our extinct evolutionary relative, the Neanderthals. Alongside these drawings on graph paper, a second layer of structure and narrative around the Apocalypse is introduced. The grid paper is associated with measurement, order, and rational systems. Within this rigid framework, fragmented, dream-like scenes appear, resisting clear storytelling and the order set upon them. The drawings often resemble illustrations of incomplete episodes, where figures emerge through repetition, interruption, and serialized logic.
The second part of the exhibition continues on the reverse side of the gallery, in the Consolation room*. Here, visitors are invited to engage with an eschatological narrative. This imagined archive exposes the fragility and artificiality of historical immortality: the destruction of museums, libraries, archives, and images—the infrastructures through which societies attempt to secure their continuity and worldly afterlife.
Duo Exhibition
February 04 – February 26, 2026
Zexuan Liu
&
Javier Gutiérrez Navarro
Venue outside viewExhibition viewJavier Gutiérrez Navarro, Evolutionary Lost Collage (3.50 × 95), oil, collage,
bullets, 2025Javier Gutiérrez Navarro, Broken Neanderthal’s Tooth (50 × 50 × 50), high- temperature glazed ceramic. 2025Exhibition viewExhibition viewZexuan Liu, Stalled Novel (1.10 × 70), engineering grid paper,
watercolor, watercolor pen, 2025Zexuan Liu, Daily Serial Novel (1.10 × 70), engineering grid paper,watercolor, watercolor pen, 2025
Zexuan Liu, Daily Serial Novel (1.10 × 70), engineering grid paper,watercolor, watercolor pen, 2025Zexuan Liu, THE ASCENSION METHOD (25 × 10), engineering grid,
paper, watercolor, watercolor pen, image transfer, 2023
Zexuan Liu, THE ASCENSION METHOD (25 × 10), engineering grid,
paper, watercolor, watercolor pen, image transfer, 2023Exhibition viewExhibition viewZexuan Liu, Me Bsang (25 × 10), engineering grid, paper,
watercolor, watercolor pen, image transfer, 2023
Exhibition viewZexuan Liu, I Painted Masks on Them (12 × 8), watercolor,
watercolor pen, 2023
Exhibition viewier Gutiérrez Navarro, Neanderthal’s Tooth (45 × 45 × 35), high-temperature glazed ceramic, 2025 Javier Gutiérrez Navarro, Consolation room (25 × 20), newspaper, collage, 2025
Curated by Egor Miroshnichenko & Mara Aiko
Photo by Egor Miroshnichenko
Text by Egor Miroshnichenko