past | TAUS MAKHACHEVA: SECOND WORLD, THIRD ATTEMPT

Taus Makhacheva:
Second World, Third Attempt

November 10th through December 23rd, 2017
Opening reception: Friday, November 10th, 6-8pm

past | AAAJIAO: USER, LOVE, HIGH-FREQUENCY TRADING

aaajiao, Candy wrappers (twitter), 2017

AAAJIAO: USER, LOVE, HIGH-FREQUENCY TRADING

May 27th through July 22nd, 2017
Opening reception: Friday, May 26th, 6-8pm

“User, Love, High-frequency Trading” marks the second solo exhibition with the gallery by Shanghai and Berlin-based young new media artist aaajiao. Aaajiao, the artistic persona of Xu Wenkai, was first created as his internet handle. As a user of many websites, social media and applications, aaajiao has been exploring the notions about such role and new identities and personalities a user may assume through his or her operation of one specific medium. This two-year long research has crystalized into the exhibition “User, Love, High-frequency Trading”. It goes through multiple aspects—for instance, user’s alter ego, social media communication, and new economies driven by algorithms and networking of users—and arrives at a particular moment in current social and technological development, which has both resonated and contrasted with many of Sci-fi cinema and literature’s Ballardian or cyberpunk fantasies of an early 21st century.

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past | PLEASE FASTEN YOUR SEAT BELT AS WE ARE EXPERIENCING SOME TURBULENCE

Please fasten your seat belt as we are experiencing some turbulence

March 18th through April 30th, 2017
Opening reception: Friday, March 17th, 6-8pm

David Kordansky Gallery and Leo Xu Projects are pleased to present “Please fasten your seat belt as we are experiencing some turbulence”, a collaborative group exhibition held at Leo Xu Projects, Lane 49, Building 3, Fuxing Xi Road, Xuhui District, Shanghai. The show will be on view from March 18 until April 30, 2017. An opening reception will take place on Friday, March 17 from 6:00pm until 8:00pm.

Featuring artists from both of the galleries’ programs, Please fasten your seat belt as we are experiencing some turbulence will examine how a wide and heterogeneous array of aesthetic positions can reflect, refract, and bear witness to an uncertain state of global affairs. The exhibition will include work by Kathryn Andrews, Andrea Büttner, Chen Wei, Heman Chong, Sam Gilliam, Zach Harris, Evan Holloway, Rashid Johnson, Gabriel Lester, Li Qing, Liu Shiyuan, Pixy Liao, Jonas Lund, Tala Madani, Chris Martin, Torbjørn Rødland, Sissel Tolaas, Tom of Finland, Wei Jia, Ming Wong, and Betty Woodman.

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past | PERFORMING TIME

Elizabeth Neel, Traders and Trade Routes 2, 2016, Acrylic on canvas, 180.3 x 195.6 cm

Performing Time

April 23rd through July 20th, 2016
VIP reception Saturday April 23rd,6-8pm

 
Artists: Chris Huen Sin Kan, Li Qing, Elizabeth Neel, Ken Okiishi, Shahzia Sikander, Taocheng Wang
 
“Performing Time” is the second curatorial collaboration between Pilar Corrias Gallery (London) and Leo Xu Projects (Shanghai), following a critically acclaimed exhibition in Hong Kong “The Tell-Tale Heart” (2015) where the relationship between narrative and new media was addressed. The new group exhibition otherwise steers its focus to painting as a medium that has recently gained vigor and repertoire from new ways of image-making, data, and performative languages in a world constantly reshaped by digital media. A product of the galleries’ ongoing opinion exchange on the gestural and time-based nature of Chinese calligraphy and ink painting, the show evaluates the boundaries of painting by and through time: How the notion of time in its physical and metaphysical sense has influenced artist’s respective practices.
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past | THE MUD OF COMPOUND EXPERIENCE


The Mud of Compound Experience

artists: aaajiao, Uri Aran, Chen Wei, Nina Canell, Lee Kit, Li Qing, Liu Chuang, Liu Shiyuan, Mairead O’hEocha
organized and produced by mother’s tankstation and Leo Xu Projects

March 21st through 27th, 2016
No. 98 Apliu Street, Sham Shui Po, Hong Kong

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past | MICHAEL LIN: A TALE OF TODAY

March 5th through April 10th, 2016
Opening reception: Saturday, March 5th, 6-8pm

The title of the exhibition is taken from American author Mark Twain’s novel “The Gilded Age – A Tale of Today” (1874). While the novel illuminated the superficiality that obscured social problems in the ‘gilded age’, Michael Lin projects a vivid ideology of ‘gild’ onto the cosmopolitanisms of the current era by way of dissecting a single day in our own time. Through the study of transportation and mobilities, he extends his critique to contemporary economic flows and urban circulations.
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past | CHEN WEI: THE LAST MAN

November 14th, 2015 through January 24th, 2016

Opening reception: Saturday, November 14th, 2015, 6-8pm.
 
“[…] the music and atmosphere carry the dancers as they search for their dream.
But in the end, the club makes everyone the same.
You can’t go against the crowd.”

 
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past | LIU SHIYUAN: FROM HAPPINESS TO WHATEVER

LIU SHIYUAN, "From Happiness to Whatever", 2015, carpet, speaker, iPod player

September 7th through October 10th, 2015
Opening reception: Monday, September 7th, 5-8pm

“From ‘Happiness’ to ‘Whatever’” is the first solo exhibition in Shanghai of young Chinese female artist Liu Shiyuan who splits her time working and living between Beijing and Copenhagen. The exhibition brings together a body of photographs and installation representative of Liu Shiyuan’s practice and made within the past 3 years, and a series of commissioned new works created specifically for this exhibition and for the gallery space in a old Shanghai lane house.

“From ‘Happiness’ to ‘Whatever’” originates with the artist’s confusions, such as “what is a good life”, “how can one be balanced”, “what is the right value system”, “what kind of social system can provide the best for the progress of human’s wisdom”, among others. The exhibition is a process of questioning and answering with the artist’s engagement by way of visual production and performance, and a quest that begins at the question “what is happiness” that extends to the mentality of various individuals.
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past | ZHENG BO: WEED PARTY

ZHENG BO, "Besiege (Shanghai Art Museum), 2015, inkjet print, 130.5 x 165 cm"

July 18th through August 23rd, 2015
Opening reception: Saturday, July 18th,  4-7pm

The first solo exhibition of Hong Kong-based artist Zheng Bo in Shanghai, “Weed Party” is the third project on plants and socio-politics of the artist, which follows the critically acclaimed presentations “Plants Living in Shanghai”—a found botanical garden of weeds and a series of online public lectures about plants and Shanghai—Zheng Bo produced for the first West Bund Architecture and Contemporary Art Biennale (curated by Gao Shiming of China Academy of Art, 2013) and “Plants Occupy Shenzhen”—an audio tour—for the 8th Shenzhen Sculpture Biennale (curated by Marko Daniel, of Tate Modern, 2014).

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offsite | THE TELL-TALE HEART

CHENG RAN, "Hit-or-miss-ist", 2013, sound installation

A group exhibition of artists aaajiao, Ian Cheng, Cheng Ran, Guo Hongwei, Koo Jeong A, Ken Okiishi, and Rirkrit Tiravanija

DATES & VENUE
March 13th through April 17th, 2015; hours: 9am-6pm
Chi Art Space, 8/F, New World Tower 2, 18 Queen’s Road, Central, Hong Kong

OPENING RECEPTION & SPECIAL PERFORMANCE
Thursday, March 12th, 5-8pm, with a special performance by Rirkrit Tiravanija at 6-7pm.
The performance continues from March 13th through 15th, 1-2pm daily.

ARTISTS’ TALK
aaajiao, Cheng Ran, Koo Jeong A and Ken Okiishi with Para/Site executive director and curator Cosmin Costinas
Thursday, March 12th, 2015, 4pm
18/F, New World Tower 2, 18 Queen’s Road, Central, Hong Kong
 
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past | WEI JIA: MILDLY BITING, ENCOUNTERING SPRING

WEI JIA, Light in the Cloud, 2014, Oil on canvas

April 24th through May 31st, 2015
Opening Reception: April 24th, 2015, 5-8pm 

The exhibition Mildly Biting, Encountering Spring takes its title from an eponymous small-scale oil painting Wei finished in early summer in 2014. Leaping from the darkness and gloominess of his previous images and the fine, vivid brushstrokes, the piece depicts two people reclining by the grassy lakeside and looking over the distant with a multitude of layers of lush green. The peacefulness and easiness in the work brim with the stillness of time and the curiosity for life. Just as implied by the title, a new shift in Wei’s painting style in the recent two years is accomplished by the emergence of immaturity, shyness and the air of spring in his work.
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past | CHEN WEI: IN THE WAVES

History of Enchantment (Cold Sculpture), 2014

Chi K11 Art Museum
B3, K11 Art Mall,
No.300 Huaihai Road Central, Shanghai

March 16th through May 31th, 2015

past | CHENG RAN: MUSIC IS ON, BAND IS GONE

Chi K11 Art Museum
B3, K11 Art Mall,
No.300 Middle Huaihai Road, Shanghai

March 16th through May 31th, 2015

A Telephone Booth Romance, 2014

HIT-OR-MISS-IT, 2013

past | ALIAS: AAAJIAO

January 16th through April 12th, 2015

Opening reception: Friday January 16th, 5-7pm.
 
“alias: aaajiao” marks the first solo exhibition with the gallery of the widely exhibited young Chinese media artist Xu Wenkai. Based in Shanghai and working under the vague and comical internet alias of aaajiao, the artist will be presenting a body of new and commissioned works, which measure the new dimension of high technology and media-based works, and address the issues derived from contemporary living with Internet and digital technology. The exhibition runs from January 16th through March 8th, 2015, with a series of events and presentations to take place on and off line. The artist will be present at the opening reception on Friday January 16th, 5-7pm.
 
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screening | FRANCESCO VEZZOLI

Venue: Leo Xu Projects
Lane 49, Building 3, Fuxing Xi Lu, Xuhui,
Shanghai 200031, China

Date: Friday, December 12th 2014, 6:30 pm

Organised jointly by Francesco Vezzoli, Arthub and Leo Xu Projects, this screening includes two works by Francesco Vezzoli “Marlene Redux: A True Hollywood Story! (Part One)” and “GREED, A New Fragrance by Francesco Vezzoli”, starting at 6:30pm.

Francesco Vezzoli will be joined by Leo Xu, Shanghainese art critic and director of Leo Xu Projects, and Shaway Yeh, group style editorial director of Modern Media Group in a artist talk Saturday, December 13th, 2:00 pm at Aurora Museum Shanghai.

past | CUI JIE: THE PROPOSALS FOR OLD AND NEW URBANISM

November 23rd, 2014 through January 4th, 2015.

LEO XU PROJECTS is pleased to present the gallery’s second solo exhibition of Beijing-based painter Cui Jie. Featuring a range of works from this year, the exhibition displays a selection of works from three of the artist’s recent series exploring urban landscapes, the relationship between the cityscape and its’ public artworks, as well the artist’s own connection with her architectural interests and research. Expanding on the continuous survey of the artist’s personal interpretations of her architectural surroundings in various urban environments in China, the exhibition presents not only the endlessness of urban development, but also the innate cyclic behaviour of metropolitan life.

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past | CHENG RAN: A TELEPHONE BOOTH ROMANCE

September 20th through November 2nd, 2014

Opening reception and live performance: Saturday, September 20th, 6-8pm.

past | SILENCE: THE NINETEEN NINETIES

CHEN WEI, "Float #0816", 2013, Archival inkjet print, 100 x 75 cm

Balice Hertling Gallery
47 rue Ramponeau, Paris
July 3rd – August 1st, 2014

Artists: aaajiao, Chen Wei, Cheng Ran, Guo Hongwei, Michael Lin, Liu Chuang, Xu Zhen, etc.
Curated by Leo Xu Details »

past | GABRIEL LESTER: THE EARS HAVE WALLS

February 22nd through April 30th, 2014

VIP reception: Saturday, February 22nd, 6-8pm

LEO XU PROJECTS is proud to present one of the most sought-after international artists Gabriel Lester’s solo show “The Ears Have Walls”. Featuring an eerie musical performance, architectural installations, photos and videos etc., this exhibition demonstrates different aspects of artist’s sensibilities and insights on our present urban life. Bluntly making jokes of what he observes in real life, the artist stages a magical world of voyeurism, eavesdropping and cynicism while making people laugh.

The confusing title of the exhibition “The Ears Have Walls” borrows from an internet typo originally for the naming of Gabriel Lester’s mixed media work “Super-Sargasso Sea (phantom play #1)” included in Performa 13 in New York, 2013. Inspired by the accidental incident, the artist develops an amusing compilation of jokes that illustrates the absurdity of reality through a variety show.

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past | JPEG: NEW PRACTICES IN PHOTOGRAPHY

JPEG: New Practices in Photography
 March 6th through April 6th, 2014
online exhibition on Artshare.com
Curated by Leo Xu

Leo Xu Projects collaborated with artshare.com to present an in depth selection of four important Chinese artists and collectives.

JPEG, in computing, is a common method of compressing images. And JPEGs are arguably the most common image format we encounter in our everyday life.

With the advent of JPEGs, the philosophy of photography has been significantly challenged and changed. Access and availability have become instant, the categorization of genres smashed, boundaries of aesthetics blurred. Between 2000 and 2005, we saw an exuberance of online forums and bulletins specializing in photography in China, frequented by a young generation of Chinese, some of whom now active artists on the local and international scene. This uprising also coincided with the momentary boom of photography festivals accommodated by many remote and ancient towns in China. These critical years heralded the arrival of a generation of artists less interested in documenting, with their cameras, performances that solely test the endurance and limits of the body. Rather, they see photography as a frontier that connects choreography, cinematography, literature, and theatre performance.
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