Taus Makhacheva:
Second World, Third Attempt
November 10th through December 23rd, 2017
Opening reception: Friday, November 10th, 6-8pm
LEO XU PROJECTS
September 2011 to December 2017
past | TAUS MAKHACHEVA: SECOND WORLD, THIRD ATTEMPT
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.
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.
past | NINA CANELL: REFLEXOLOGY
Nina Canell: Reflexology
November 9th, 2016 through January 15th, 2017
Opening reception: Wednesday, November 9th, 5-8pm
Nina Canell: “Reflexology” is the first solo exhibition of Berlin-based artist Nina Canell (b.1979, Sweden) to take place in China. Set across all three floors of the gallery space, Canell’s characteristically concise sculptural works of found and functional objects explore the often-overlapping networks and natural phenomena that surround us, probing the connections between material objects and immaterial forces. For this exhibition, Canell presents a series of new and recent works, incorporating site-specific elements and objects that have been sourced locally in Shanghai.
Taking the practice of reflexology as her starting point, Canell uses the exhibition format to investigate how the varying meanings of the term might be interpreted through the relationship between the work and its viewer.
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past | PIXY LIAO: VENUS AS A BOY
September 24th through October 25th, 2016
Opening reception: Saturday, September 24th, 6-8pm.
“Pixy Liao: Venus As A Boy” marks the first solo exhibition of Shanghai-born Brooklyn-based young female artist Pixy Yijun Liao with the gallery, running from September 24th through October 25th, 2016. Having studied photography at University of Memphis and lived in the States for over a decade, Liao is highly influenced by the style of New American Color Photography in her practices, yet spinning off from the critique of “the American dream” to focus on the contemporary lives of Asian immigrants in the western society, presenting portraits and relationship hierarchies of the youth and the minorities with a rare observational wit.
The title of the exhibition is taken from one of the greatest hits of Icelandic musician, singer, and actress Björk Gumundsdottir, in which she questions masculine and feminine gender identities as socially constructed and breaks down the popular conceptions of gender binaries. Sharing a similar objection against the conventional assumptions of gender roles, Pixy Liao uses language of contemporary American photography of deadpan portraits, seemingly unmemorable objects, and staged scenes in her photographic practices to challenge the preconceived notions about characteristics and behaviors of different genders in heterosexual relationships in the Asian American society, throwing tradition out the window in an often humorous effect.
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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 | 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).
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 | 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.
past | CHENG RAN: A TELEPHONE BOOTH ROMANCE
September 20th through November 2nd, 2014
Opening reception and live performance: Saturday, September 20th, 6-8pm.
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.
past | LI QING: IN THE VICINITY
LI QING, "Manuscript on Window", 2013, wood, glass, metal, oil color, 66 x 114 x 10.5 cm
November 30th, 2013 through February 13th, 2014
Artist Li Qing‘s solo show In the Vicinity comprises a new series of site-specific installations, videos, mixed media and poet etc. By creating visual illusions and juxtaposing or transforming different visual symbols, artist demonstrates us a dynamic cityscape of Shanghai: a complex web of various ideologies and notions coexisting and mingling. He opens up dialogues between the history and the present as well as between the past and the future.
past | GROUP EXHIBITION: READING
October 12th through November 17th, 2013
VIP reception: Saturday October 12th, 6-8pm
Artists: aaajiao, Chen Wei, Cheng Ran,Heman Chong, Simon Fujiwara, Ryan Gander, Guo Hongwei, Li Ran, Michael Lin, Henrik Olesen, Qiu Anxiong, Wang Taocheng, Werker Magazine (Marc Roig Blesa & Rogier Delfos), Ming Wong and Zhao Zhao.
LEO XU PROJECTS is pleased to present group exhibition “Reading”, featuring a selection of works from aaajiao, Chen Wei, Cheng Ran, Guo Hongwei, Heman Chong, Simon Fujiwara, Ryan Gander, Guo Hongwei, Zhao Zhao and Michael Lin among others. The show runs from September 9th through to November 27th.
Taking over both the gallery space and the Bund’s Le Space, the exhibition surveys the act of ‘reading’, exploring its role in history, in modern times as well as in present day. Throughout the development of mankind and human civilization, we have relied and depended on reading to gain, gather or communicate knowledge and information for all disciplines; for example, Chinese literati scholars required poetry to be shared through reading before it was considered a complete work, and reading became a means not only to express oneself but to understand others. Whether it be reading nature, reading the stars, reading technology, reading literature, reading performance, or reading art, the manner of reading has been vital not only for individuals, but for vital understanding of the people, objects, disciplines both closely and far away. Using this prompt, this exhibition displays the manifestations of reading in the selected artists’ practices, demonstrating the varieties of definitions and approaches to ‘Reading’.
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talk | NYU SYMPOSIUM: TRANSCULTURAL VISUALITIES – GLOBAL ASIAN ART
The symposium “Transcultural Visualities – Global Asian Art” presents an international inter-institutional effort to think through the space of Asian art within a global framework.
Part of a multi-year program taking place in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Sydney, Wollongong, Washington, and New York, this symposium is part of a series workshops, studio visits, and other forms of engagement with art theory and practices that pertain to transculturalism, identity, memory, and place. With participation by an international roster of scholars, curators, artists, and other art professionals, ‘Transcultural Visualities – Global Asian Art’ engages the art community and the wider public through the lens of the discourse and artistic production that comes under the rubric of Asian art on a global level.
Co-convened by Alexandra Chang and Francesca Tarocco, the symposium is presented by the Asian/Pacific/American Institute at NYU and NYU in Shanghai, with participants including Zheng Bo, Mathieu Borysevicz, Dean Chan, Alexandra Chang, CYJO, Dipti Desai, Simon Kirby, Jacqueline Lo, Tom Looser, Mark Johnson, Oscar Ho, Nicholas Mirzoeff, Arthur Solway, Francesca Tarocco, Frank Vigneron, Leo Xu, Jian-Jun Zhang, and many others.
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past | GUO HONGWEI: EDITING
GUO HONGWE, "Untitled (Perfect Lovers), 1991", 2013, Collage on paper, 44 x 63.4 cm
April 25th through July 15th, 2013