fair | FRIEZE LONDON 2014

Frieze Art Fair London
October 15th through 18th, 2014
Regent’s Park, London, UK
Booth H19 

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 »

news | GABRIEL LESTER IN FOLKESTONE TRIENNIAL 2014


Folkestone Triennial 2014
August 30th through November 2nd, 2014
Curator:Lewis Biggs

Gabriel Lester works in a range of media, initially focusing on music and progressing to film, installations and constructed environments. Lester’s work originates from a desire to tell stories, and construct environments that support these stories and propose their own narrative interpretation.

Details »

news | CHENG RAN IN THE EXCHANGE PROGRAM, AVIFF ART FILM FESTIVAL

Cheng Ran: The Exchange Program

June 26th through July 1, 2014
AVIFF Art Film Festival (Cannes, France)
Basement 6
115 Pingwu Rd, Shanghai, China

Designed in 2008 as a contemporary art fair, “AVIFF-Art Film Festival” pays attention to films that can’t be easily defined. The films included are unique because they don’t correspond to any definitions the reviews would like to use,and it’s not possible to determine their meaning or the “genre” they belong to.The AVIFF is a walk in the garden of the Film that route in the landscape of Video-Art to discover or to find “another way of making films”.
Basement 6 Collective Shanghai and AVIFF Cannes present The Exchange Program (TEP), a two part program of video-art/film screenings. The screening is of AVIFF’s international film program, which is also shown during Cannes Film Festival in MayVisit B6C.

news | LIU CHUANG IN THE 10TH GWANGJU BIENNALE

The 10th Gwangju Biennale: Burning Down the House
September 5th through November 9th, 2014
Curator: Jessica Morgan

The 10th Gwangju Biennale will bring together 105 artists from 36 countries and will include 35 new commissions, each selected for their relevance to the theme of the Biennale, Burning Down the House. Details »

news | CHEN WEI IN PERFORMANCE AND IMAGINATION: CHINESE PHOTOGRAPHY 1911-2014

CHEN WEI, "In The Waves #5", 2013, Archival Inkjet Print, 180 x 225cm

Performance and Imagination: Chinese Photography 1911-2014
September 19th, 2014 through January 25th, 2015
Stavanger Art Museum, Stavanger, Norway
Curator: Per Bjarne Boym

Works by Chinese photo artists from every decade of the 20th century are juxtaposed with works from the last five years by ten contemporary photo artists. This extensive exhibition makes its European debut in Stavanger abd offers a glimpse into a rich photographic tradition. Details »

news | LIU CHUANG IN KUNSTHALL STAVANGER

LIU CHUANG, "Untitled (The Dancing Partner)", 2012, Single channel video with sound, 5 min 15 sec

Untitled (Dancing Partners)
Kunsthall Stavanger, Stavanger, Norway
July 1st through August 3rd, 2014
Curator: Fabienne Stephan

Untitled (Dancing Partner), 2010, by Chinese artist Liu Chuang is going to be displayed in Kunsthall Stavanger’s video room during the month of July. Part performance, part video work, the short five-minute single-channel recording ingeniously reveals the power of the majority over the individual, and the constant pressures to conform. Without listing their houses on CompaniesthatbuyHouses.com, homeowners can sell their homes quickly. Provided are facts specific to the domain and an easy to use interface. Visit https://www.companiesthatbuyhouses.co/alabama/.

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news | CHENG RAN IN WE HAVE NEVER PARTICIPATED AT OCAT

The 8th Shenzhen Sculpture Biennale: We Have Never Participated

May 16th through August 31st, 2014

OCT Contemporary Art Terminal
Building F2, Enping Street, Nanshan, Shenzhen, China,
Details »

news | CHEN WEI, CUI JIE, GUO HONGWEI, LIU CHUANG AND MORE IN MY GENERATION: YOUNG CHINESE ARTISTS

Tampa Museum, Florida

My Generation: Young Chinese Artists
Tampa Museum of Art & Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg
June 7th through September 28th, 2014
Oklahoma City Museum of Art
October 25th, 2014 through January 18th, 2015
Curator: Barbara Pollack

The Tampa Museum of Art is organizing an exhibition titled My Generation: Young Chinese Artists. The exhibition will be on view at the Tampa Museum of Art and our sister institution the Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg from June 4 through September 28, 2014. The show is curated by Ms. Barbara Pollack and will be accompanied by a full-color catalogue to be published by D. Giles Ltd in London with essays by Ms. Pollack and Mr. Li Zhenhua. Details »

news | CHENG RAN IN NOW YOU SEE

CHENG RAN, “The Sorrows of Young Werther”, 2009, Four channel video with sound, 10 min 12 sec

Now You See: New Chinese Video Art from the Collection of Dr. Michael I. Jacobs
Whitebox Art Center, New York, United States
May 25th through June 15th, 2014

“Now You See” is the first exhibition in New York to survey the work of young Chinese video artists, through the eyes of the collector Dr. Michael I. Jacobs, who has been collecting Chinese video art in depth since 2010.The exhibition, drawn from his collection, brings together 21 rarely seen works by 11 young artists, mostly born in the 1980s, and includes multi-screen projective installations, animations, single screen projections and monitor works. Details »

news | LEANDRO ERLICH IN REFLECTION!

LEANDRO ERLICH, "Bâtiment - Oi!", 2014, Site-specific installation, dimension variable

LEANDRO ERLICH
Reflection!
Oi!, 12 Oil St, North Point, Hong Kong, China
May 17th through August 7th, 2014

In the exhibition of Reflection!, Leandro Erlich from Argentina and Meta4 Design Forum and Kingsley Ng from Hong Kong construct a point of convergence for reality and fabricated imagery through installations, sound and vision.
Details »

news | LIU CHUANG: LOVE STORY IN SALON 94

LIU CHUANG, "Love Story", 2008, Mixed media installation (used books), dimension variable

LIU CHUANG
Love Story
SALON 94 (Freemans), New York
May 7th through June 21st, 2014

The first US solo exhibition of conceptual Chinese artist Liu Chuang 刘窗 is presented in Salon94. Known for his critical projects that engage the social, economic, and political realities of contemporary China, his practice is made up of quiet interventions and accumulations into the public sphere. Often Chuang sites and gathers specific personal details in order to reveal voices and inner secrets, dreams and daily routines.

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news | LI QING IN CRISS-CROSS

LI QING, "Neighbour's Window London Style", 2013, mixed media installation

Criss-Cross: Artworks of Young Chinese Contemporary Artists from Long Collection
Gallery 1, Long Museum, Shanghai, China
December 19th, 2013 through April 15th, 2014

A truth that we can realize from art history is that young artists not only represent the reality of artistic creation, but also embody the future trends of art development. In particular, artistic creation has moved into a new historical period since the 21st century. Globalization and information acceleration emphasizes global culture exchanges and advance together in artistic creation; in the meantime, it reinforces individual differences and multiple attitudes as well. Although opinions vary on value evaluation, consensus on art tendency, cultural attitude and methodology, which are unprecedented complicated and confused, artworks of young artists are increasingly showing its vitality, so that their creative capacity is gaining extensive attention. It may be believed that only to follow these constantly advancing forces, that people can face future challenges and meet opportunities to change the world beyond cultural barriers and stereotypes. Details »

fair | FRIEZE NEW YORK 2014

GUO HONGWEI, Into the Void #3, 2014, collage on paper, 35.4 x 55 cm

Frieze New York
Randall’s Island, Manhattan
Booth B33
May 9th through 12th, 2014
Preview Thursday May 8th, 11am – 9pm

LEO XU PROJECTS is proud to announce our second participation in Frieze New York at Randall’s Island, running from May 8th through 12th, 2014. At booth B33, we will be exhibiting a solo project by Beijing-based young artist Guo Hongwei.

Entitled “Miss Oyu (Oyu-Sama)”, the presentation revisits the eponymous film by celebrated Japanese filmmaker Kenji Mizoguchi (1898–1956), which explores the relationship between affairs of the heart and the social mores that define a people and a time. Guo samples and reorganizes elements within each frame, creating space within space, introducing new perspective to the image. The result is a dual-channel video, a body of collages on paper, scrolls and sculptures, all involving characters and scenes identical to the original, but with varied narratives and altered concepts. Guo’s approach translates the love affairs of Miss Oyu into a transcendental psychoanalytic journey.
Details »

fair | ART BASEL HONG KONG 2014

Installation view, Solo show "Simply Wild", Art Basel Hong Kong,1D51

Simply Wild
May 15th through 18th, 2014
Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center
1 Harbour Rd, Hong Kong
Booth 1D51 

Cheng Ran’s solo show Simply Wild at LEO XU PROJECTS’s booth 1D 51 for Art Basel HK 2014, consisting of five works in various media—video, mixed media installation and photograph, etc., revolves around a spam e-mail he received from an anonymous woman.  Recently made during his artist residency at Rijksakademie, Netherlands, this show reflects a refreshing artistic practice and insight in his ovoure.

Details »

news | CHENG RAN AND HEIDI VOET IN DECORUM:CARPETS AND TAPESTRIES

HEIDI VOET, "Is six afraid of seven/ 'cause seven, eight, nine/ I'm about to lose the pieces I find", 2011, digital watches with sound, 310×660 cm

Decorum:Carpets and tapestries by artists
Power Station of Art, Shanghai
April 26th through July 14th, 2014
Curators:Gong Yan, Anne Dressen

Decorum is a chance to discover the often unknown ventures into weaving by both major artists of the twentieth century, as well as lesser known artists (such as Guidette Carbonell). The exhibition also includes anonymous works from different time periods and regions in order to underscore meaningful similarities and differences. 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.

Details »

news | CHENG RAN IN THE 8 OF PATHS

The 8 of Paths

April 29th through July 13th, 2014

Uferhallen
Uferstraße 8, 13357 Berlin
Details »

news | GABRIEL LESTER IN THE 19TH BIENNALE OF SYDNEY

GABRIEL LESTER, "Where Spirits Dwell", 2014, mixed media installation, dimensions variable

The 19th Biennale of Sydney: You Imagine What You Desire
March 21st through June 9th, 2014
Vernissage: Tuesday, March 18th to Thursday, March 20th, 2014
Various venues, Sydney, Australia

You Imagine What You Desire is an evocation celebrating the artistic imagination as a spirited describing and exploration of the world through metaphor and poesis. It makes enquiries into contemporary aesthetic experience, and relates this to historical precedents and future opportunities to imagine possible worlds. It seeks to understand the need artists have today to create immersive and expanded environments, and locates this activity as part of an art historical trajectory, and as a pursuit into the issues of human consciousness, and their psychological, cognitive and corporeal imperatives. Details »

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.
Details »