LEO XU PROJECTS

Cheng Ran: The Book Lovers 4.0, Pop-up Bookstore

January 28th through February 2nd, 2014
De Appel Arts Centre
Prins Hendrikkade 142, Amsterdam, Netherlands

The Book Lovers presents the first (pop-up) bookstore specialized in artist novels. The bookstore is hosted by De Appel and run by Buchhandlung Walther König. For the first time the novels are not only on display for public’s perusal, but also available for sale, fulfilling in this way the public dimension inherent to the novel format.
The full collection of artist’s novels is on display, arranged according to genres, from Science-fiction to Pornography, by way of Autobiography, Drama, Gothic, Künstlerroman, Detectives, and many more.

28 Chinese
December 4th, 2013 through August 1st, 2014
Rubell family collection|contemporary arts foundation
95 NW 29th Street, Miami, FL

28 Chinese is the culmination of the Rubells’ six research trips to China between 2001 and 2012 where they visited one hundred artists’ studios in Beijing, Chengdu, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Xi’an and acquired artwork from twenty-eight artists.

These artists will be represented by paintings, photographs, sculptures and video installations. This will be the first exhibition in North America for many of these artists. The oldest artist in the exhibition was born in 1954 and the youngest was born in 1986. A fully illustrated, 262 page catalog in Chinese and English with text from all of the artists will accompany the exhibition as well as a complementary audio tour. This exhibition will occupy the Foundation’s 28 galleries, 40,000 sq foot museum.

All of the artwork in the exhibition is from the permanent collection.
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January 24th through April 27th, 2014
Opening: January 24th, 2014, 5PM–8PM
Witte de With Contemporary Art
Witte de Withstraat 50 – 3012 BR, Rotterdam

The Crime Was Almost Perfect brings together over forty artists who cross the bridges linking art and the aesthetics of crime. The Crime Was Almost Perfect is also the first exhibition to present works in the new exhibition space on the ground floor of the institution.
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Cheng Ran: West Bund 2013: A Biennial of Architecture and Contemporary Art

October 20th through December 19th, 2013
West Bund No.2350, Longteng Avenue
Xuhui District, Shanghai, China

The West Bank Architecture and Contemporary Art Biennale 2013 is held in the waterfront of Xuhui District, Shanghai in October, 2013. Opened on October 19, 2013 and wound up on December 15. The advantage of the Biennale rests upon its structural implication of starting from scratch. “West Bank 2013″, as its first exhibition, lays focus on three aspects: space construction, artistic production and future imagination. Details »

December 22nd, 2013 to March 23rd, 2014
OCAT Shanghai, 1016 North Suzhou Road, Shanghai
Curator: Mariagrazia Costantino

Participating artists: Chen Wei, Cheng Ran, Chen Zhou, Guan Xiao, Hu Yun, Li Ming, Li Ran, Lu Yang, Ma Qiusha, Ye Linghan

Degeneration explores the concept of continuity and rupture in Contemporary Art, through the presentation of the most representative young artists working with different media in Mainland China.

There seems to be now a certain tension between the reluctance to move away from the legacy transmitted by the former generations and the objective necessity to break this thread: is precisely this the way a new generation arises.

What we would like to suggest or imagine is a possible scenario in which there is no more need to refer back to the formal authority of preceding generation, yet irreverent spirit can be maintained.

The word “Degeneration” implies several meanings. The literal one is “deviation from one’s own genus”, referring to a process that cannot be stopped, an altered status which makes impossible to go back to the starting point, or even to an intermediary one. Not necessarily utterly bad, this is a condition contemporary societies – including the Chinese one – are now confronted with. In this specific context, the other temporary meaning conferred on the word derives from its split into two separate parts – “de” and “generation”: the prefix “de” is used to indicate a process of privation, which in this case is that of this missing “generation.” As a process, “degeneration” embeds the symptom and the cure. Details »

CHENG RAN Studio at Rijksakademie OPEN 2013
November 30th through December 1st, 2013
Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten, Amsterdam

In international language testing there are usually four standards by which proficiency is assessed: listening, speaking, reading and writing. Hence, these have become the rules to judge whether a certain person possesses the elementary ability to communicate with others and whether they have the capacity to live overseas. On top of this, they represent a certain kind of defining dimensionality to one’s personal identity, and through examination papers and data, they infer one’s personal ability to control and balance the emotional and the rational. In his one year of residence at Rijksakademie, Cheng Ran employed video installations, sounds and a novel as his creative media, to query these fake, emotionless standards and, from an opposing perspective, to attempt to re-discover the interaction between the primitive instincts of one’s human body and the social fabric in order to describe this state of mania with its corresponding physical disorders, possessing a rebellious personal identity and values. From this, the title is taken.

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September 27th to December 15th, 2013
Opening reception: September 26th, 6PM-8PM
Sheila C. Johnson Design Center
Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Gallery

Ideas and experiences of “China” live across many borders. As routes of commerce and leisure between Chinese regions have become more open, artists have embraced mobility, traveling (or having multiple artistic bases) from Mainland China to Taiwan, Taiwan to Hong Kong or to Singapore, and other areas with large historical Chinese populations. Through works in video, photography, installation, sound and performance, this exhibition explores the pluralism of this Chinese identity, geographically and culturally.

Curated by Arthur Ou, an artist and Assistant Professor of Photography at Parsons, the exhibition features work by Chen Chieh-jen, Heman Chong, Cao Fei, Lee Kit, Michael Lin, Charwei Tsai, Hong-kai Wang, Ming Wong, Jun Yang, and Hu Yun.

PRESS
South China Morning Post, “New York art show tackles what it means to be Chinese in the modern age”, December 2013 [download pdf]

October 5th, 2013 through March 16th, 2014
Carnegie Museum of Art
4400 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA

A commissioned new work and a selection of previous installations by Beijing-based He An will be on view in 2013 Carnegie International that runs from October 5th, 2013 through March 16th, 2014, with an opening celebration on Friday October 4.

Inaugurated in 1896, the Carnegie International is the longest-running international survey of contemporary art at any museum. The upcoming edition will feature Ei Arakawa/Henning Bohl, Phyllida Barlow, Yael Bartana, Sadie Benning, Bidoun Library, The Collection, Nicole Eisenman, Lara Favaretto, Vincent Fecteau, Rodney Graham, Guo Fengyi, Wade Guyton, Rokni Haerizadeh, He An, Amar Kanwar, Dinh Q. Lê, Mark Leckey, Pierre Leguillon, Sarah Lucas, Tobias Madison, Zanele Muholi, Paulina Olowska, The Playground Project, Pedro Reyes, Kamran Shirdel, Gabriel Sierra, Taryn Simon, Frances Stark, Joel Sternfeld, Mladen Stilinović, Zoe Strauss, Henry Taylor, Tezuka Architects, Transformazium, Erika Verzutti, and Joseph Yoakum.

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June 1st through September 15th, 2013
Opening:May 30th, 2013, 5-8pm
Palasport “Giobatta Gianquinto” (Palasport Arsenale)
Calle San Biagio 2132 Castello — Venezia

A winner of Special mentions for National Participations of the 55th International Art Exhibition of la Biennale di Venezia, Oo is the pavilion that brings together two countries: Cyprus and Lithuania. Curated by Raimundas Malašauskas, the twin pavilions feature artists Liudvikas Buklys, Gintaras Didžiapetris, Jason Dodge, Lia Haraki, Maria Hassabi, Phanos Kyriacou, Myriam Lefkowitz, Gabriel Lester, Elena Narbutaitė, Morten Norbye Halvorsen, Algirdas Šeškus, Dexter Sinister, Constantinos Taliotis, Kazys Varnelis, Natalie Yiaxi, and Vytautė Žilinskaitė.

Oo is a slightly asymmetric structure conveying uneven, yet mutually open elements; slinging in a movement of a constant twist between the two (at least), suspicious of one, entailed by organizational surfing. Drawing on interest in forms of organization rather than organization of forms, it floats like life and plankton.
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National Salon of Artists: Saber Desconocer (To Know Not to Know)
September 6th through November 3rd, 2013
Medellín, Colombia

First held in 1940, Colombia’s longest-running and best-known platform for contemporary art, the National Salon of Artists, presents its 43rd edition (SNA43) in the city of Medellín from Friday, September 6 to November 3, 2013.

Saber Desconocer (To Know Not To Know) features approximately 100 installations, sculptures, videos, audio works, photographs and paintings by as many artists from throughout Latin America and abroad.

All the featured work will be explored through the lens of two themes: saber, the importance of tradition, territory, and knowledge developed in one place; and desconocer, the need to escape from place and the quest for the unknown.
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Variations On An Icon
September 10th through 30th, 2013
K11 Art Mall
300 Middle Huaihai Road, Shanghai

Chen Wei, together with two other young Chinese artists aaajiao and Hu Yun, are commissioned by Max Mara to produce works that reflect the ideas behind the coat 101801. The new works will be on view in a special presentation titled “Variations on An Icon”.
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Cheng Ran: Video Bureau

May 31st, 2013
Ground floor, 12,Yile Yixiang, Yile Road, Haizhu District
Guangzhou (the backyard of Libreria Borges Institute for Contemporary Art), China

Video Bureau is a non-profit organization that aims to provide a platform to exhibit, organize and archive video art. The mission of Video Bureau is to collect and organize artworks of video artists in order to build a video archive that welcomes research and viewing. As an institute opens to the public, every month Video Bureau features one artist’s video works, and hosts related events.
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