YUAN FUCA

Live Performances

Vivian Vivian Xiaoshi Qin: Lv Hua Dai, 2018.4.15 7pm

In the year 2300 at the Shenzhen Hexiangning Art Museum, we reviewed the visual narrative styles and the historical evolution of Lv Hua Dai from 300 years ago. The mechanical reproduction of the Lv Hua Dai created geometric patterns that consisted of shrub A clusters around B, C, D... (from minimal to complex), in the forms of dragons, other types of animals, and phrases. Unlike the up-close and compounded landscaping rendered on the basis of the human body, the public Lv Hua Dai were designed for the sky, the flowers and foliage one saw from the window of a car are part of a greater narrative. At the time, the availability of public space in the air was quite limited.

In response to the environmental philosopher Steven Vogel’s proposal, “Thinking Like a Mall” to discard the dichotomy of the artificial and the natural, and the resistance to weaponize artificial intelligence, the immersive green belt based on AI machines came into our lives. Thereon, the Lv Hua Dai not only belong to the sky, but flocks of cacti floating in the air could land at any time into Californian style gardens, and anyone can order the sight of the bamboo forest for one’s room. Meanwhile, the engineers who built the Lv Hua Dai have been hiding behind the reeds above in the city…

Artist Xiaoshi Vivian Vivian Qin’s exhibition at Salt Projects will tell the tales of future Lv Hua Dai through performance, sound, installation and moving images.

Xiaoshi Vivian Vivian Qin (b. 1989, Guangzhou) is an artist based in Guangzhou. In 2015, she earned an MFA in Visual Arts from Columbia University following a BA in Studio Art and Communication from Denison University in 2012. She has hosted high school debates on contemporary art world issues, designed a phone app to find alternate ways to talk about gender issues, organized meetings between scientists, artists, and philosophers to address the possibility that we live in a simulation, and organized a fictional panel that took place in the future. She is currently devoting her time to researching BL culture.

Her work has been exhibited as part of In Search of Miss Ruthless (Para Site, Hong Kong, 2017), OCAT Shenzhen (2017), You Won't Be Young Forever curated by Biljana Ciric, Shanghai (2016), Queens Museum, New York (2016), Barnard College, New York (2016), Spring/Break Art Show, New York (2016), 221A, Vancouver (2015), Fisher Landau Center, Queens (2015), Jewish Museum, New York (2014), and Wallach Art Gallery, New York and Weekend, Seoul. Her work was projected on the Brooklyn Bridge, New York. She is a winner of the Lotos Foundation Prize in 2015. She did the Spring Workshop/ Para Site residency in 2017. She is the founder and editor-in-chief of Ruthless Lantern, a gossip art magazine.

Hossein Ghaemi: Enter at the intermission, 2017.4.29 6-8pm

Curated by Joanna Bayndrian, Presented by Salt Projects

Australian artist Hossein Ghaemi's first performance in China, Enter at the intermission transforms Salt Projects' shopfront into a surreal, theatrical environment, encouraging playful interactions between performers, costumes, space, set and audience. Centring around a makeshift alter, Ghaemi assumes the role of conductor of an improvised ritual featuring a cast of unnamed characters, figures of the unconscious and folds of the self that expand and contract into multiple configurations.

Enter at the intermission comprises three parts: Act One, Intermission and Act Two.

Ghaemi's costumes are all handmade by his mum in Sydney.

Hossein Ghaemi is represented by The Commercial Gallery, Sydney, Australia

Hossein Ghaemi (b. 1985, Tehran) presents surreal scenarios via real and imaginary characters. Secrecy and the unconscious, theatricality and mysticism operate as veiling elements in his paintings, sculptures, installations and performances.

Since 2009, Ghaemi has developed an impressive series of surreal performance works that employ choirs for which he creates a score, abstract libretto as well as full costuming, styling and choreographing of singers.

Ghaemi was selected for Primavera 2014: Young Australian Artists at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, his first major exhibition in a public institution.

In 2010, Ghaemi completed a Bachelor of Visual Arts (Honours) at Sydney College of the Arts, The University of Sydney. Since then he has actively exhibited principally in artist-run-initiatives in Sydney, Melbourne and Hobart and developed performances for festivals and arts programs in Sydney and Melbourne. Solo exhibitions (excluding performances) include WIDE BLUE YONDER AND THE ALMIGHTY HOOF (a painting show!) at The Commercial Gallery, Sydney (2014); a temporary outdoor sculpture, Bush Node and the Second Fiddle, for the artist-run public art program, Plinth Projects, in Melbourne's Edinburgh Gardens (2014); Spirit Awl Hickey, Vox Talent / Crest of the Pious Hex-dump! at The Commercial Gallery, Sydney (2013).

Li Tingwei: Chatting Room, 2016.8.26 - 8.28, 2-6pm

Chatting Room addresses on contemporary health issues and concept of being socially acceptable. The artist will transform the gallery into a chatting room and offer free conversation-based therapy for visitors.

Tingwei Li is a Chinese born artist based in Berlin, having recently worked in Beijing. She studied at Hunter College, UdK Berlin and is currently pursuing a Meisterschueler title at the Berlin University of Arts. She has shown in Galerie Gerken Berlin, Villa Renata Basel, EGG Gallery Beijing, chi K11, Shanghai, Intelligentsia Gallery Beijing, Kreuzberg Pavillon Berlin, Flowers Gallery NYC among others.

Empty_FM, 2016.8.21-23, 2-6pm

Liu Yefu and Yufei produce podcasts of artist conversations since early 2016. By creating a physical space where multiple layers of conversations and times intertwine and overlap, Empty_FM radiates the intimate signals from a young artist community.

Yefu Liu received his MFA from MICA, MD. His practice involves multiple medium including video, sound, performance and photography. He has been exhibited in Yuz Museum, Shanghai(2016), Magician-Space, Beijing(2016), 33Space, Shenzhen(2016), Kimberly-Klark, Queens(2015), Vox Populi, Philadelphia(2014). Zhang Yufei was born in 1985, Beijing. Graduated from the Oil Painting Department of Sichuan Fine Arts Institute with a bachelor ́s degree in 2006, Graduated from the Oil Painting Department of Sichuan Fine Arts Institute with a master ́s degree in 2014. He currently works and lives in Beijing.

Feed Chicken: Welcome, 2016.7.30, 4pm

“Welcome” is a “‘reading’ room” of daily-life/internet-found imageries organized by Tenten. To watch, to sense, to scroll, to touch, to sit, to dance are welcomed. At the opening performance, Feed Chicken is going to bring music and real-time projection of laptop screen.

Feed Chicken is a performance duo founded by Tenten Yitian Yan and Jing Yu, mainly exploring sound and image improvisation, blurring the boundary in music and performance art. Tenten Yitian Yan (1010) was raised in 1990s Shenzhen, received her BFA in photography at SVA, 2015, and currently works in New York. Tenten’s work focused on motion and language expression in the flow of real and cyber life, creating spaces for sense exchange. Jing Yu, audio engineer, musician and artist. Her performance experiences includes Modern Sky Festival (2013), Xihu Music Festival (2010, 2014), Woodwires Music Festival (2012); recent sound projects exhibited on ISEA 2016, Maker Fair NYC 2015. Jing currently studies in New York.

Zhang Yunfeng & Li Haiguang: Playground, 2016.5.22, 3pm

"Playground" is a collaborative work of Li Haiguang and Zhang Yunfeng, evolving through conflicts, confrontation, competition, ambiguous moments and game playing between two artists' bodies. The artists' exploration on specific movements departs from campus playground to general places, where they extend the concept of movement to all possible body and mind activities. Meanwhile, the different physiques and personalities of two artists attribute to their constantly changing relationship.

Li Haiguang was born in 1989, Hunan. Graduated from Xinjin Arts Institute in 2012, he lives in the suburbs of Beijng. Zhang Yunfeng was born in 1988, Henan. Zhang moved to Xinjiang with his family in 1992. Graduated from Central Academcy of Fine Arts in 2016, he lives in the suburbs of Beijing.

William Wen: Height, 2016.5.21, 6:30pm

"Height" is Willian Wen's interpretation of the modern human state. As individuals strive to reach their goals and personal heights, little do we know that we have created a prison in which everyone acts as both prisoner and guard. Wen was born in the United States and raised in Beijing, Wen graduated from NYU Tisch school of the Arts in 2014. Wen now works as a filmmaker, stage actor and artist in Beijing.

Solo Exhibitions

Covey Gong: Cherry, 2018.9.7 -10.21

"...The wind came through the window, and the long lacquer mirror carved with palindromic verse hanging opposite swayed in the wind and knocked and knocked and struck against the wall. Qi Qiao held the mirror in both hands to steady it. The green bamboo screen and a set of green and gold landscape paintings on scrolls reflected in the mirror hung as before, rippling to and fro in the wind. After looking at the mirror for some time, it would give one a sort of seasick feeling. Upon fixing one's gaze on it again, the color of the green bamboo screen is different, the green and gold landscape now swapped for a portrait of her deceased husband, the person in the mirror aged ten years.”

—Eileen Chang, The Golden Cangue

Covey Gong's work focuses on the grain property of fabric and its corresponding emotional symbolism. In his solo exhibition “Cherry” at SaltProjects, Gong takes details such as mounting and presentation of painting in Chinese and western art history as his subject of inquiry, revealing the labor and thinking behind personal hopes and expectations that are often neglected yet strongly present in the making of art. On site, the precious velvet curtain serves as a metaphor of abstract painting as well as softens the blunt, clumsy wall surface, turning it into a sort of dramatic field, while the soft, delicate, frail fabric sculpture floating through it is like the emotions of imagination embodied, reconstructing a rich and complex inner world, as well as responding to the entire spacetime.

Ke Peng: The Secured, 2018.7.27 - 8.30

During the preparation for the show, by chance we realized that the same material for secure enclosures are also used for the strict confinement of people. This violent contrast between a kindergarten and an interrogation room drew our awareness to the fact that security always goes hand-in-hand with strict forms of surveillance. In Ke Peng’s work, these contradictions regularly come to the surface through a subtle situation. She often captures these scenes inadvertently, seemingly by drifting without specific aim through these different settings. The artist neither adheres to the rigid documentation of reality nor does she base her methodology on a voyeuristic gaze. Rather, she situates herself somewhere between a loose and formal approach to image-making, relying on a detached way of looking in order to respond to a specific moment in time. Her photography retains a precocious, innocent, and curious gaze, which shines through a nostalgic light that radiates between her images. Against the backdrop of an ever-changing urban landscape, the corner of a living room steeped in a domestic Chinese aesthetic, or the scene of a public playground in the park – these images and perspectives are extracted from scenes to highlight the different levels of comfort and security that can be found in certain environments. These images also function as a mirror to reflect the incongruous or detached ambivalence that can be felt within these spaces.

The Secured at Salt Projects is Ke Peng’s debut solo exhibition in China and marks her first attempt to expand her photography work towards the creation of a setting within the space. Behind this warm and intimate environment, Ke Peng veils a critical gaze in her work, which in turn underscores a suppressed feeling of tension throughout the exhibition.

Ke Peng (b.1992, Changsha) lives and work in Los Angeles and Shenzhen. She graduated from the Photography Department of Rhode Island School of Design in 2015, and recevied the Abigail Cohen felllowship from Magnum Foundation and ChinaFile in 2017. Published Jiazazhi Press, her first photobook will launch in fall 2018. Ke Peng’s work embraces the individual experience in rapidly developing cities, especially how children attain self-cognition in an ever-changing environment. She believes the dynamic energy in observation, a static motion, as well as self-projection and the potential of psychology in photography.

Her solo and group exhibitions include: "Underneath the Tree Where I Buried All My Childhood Pets"(Gallery 50, Toronto, 2017), "Leaky Logic and a Fugitive Fish" (Red Eye Gallery, Providence, 2015). Her work has been exhibited as part of Over the Influence, LeRoy Neiman Gallery at Columbia University, Aperture Foundation, NARS Foundation, Filter Photo, Gallery Kayafas, Pingyao International Photography Festival. She was granted scholarship as a resident artist in the Center for Photography at Woodstock, ACRE and The Lighthouse Works.

Li Shurui: Light Extracts, 2018.2.4 - 3.31

On one hand it's senseless and boring, but on the other hand it creates a tense atmosphere in a scene of life at the right time, and the abundant spheres become a sort of mystical, harmonious object. As the color slowly transitions, the plane extends to possess the feeling of depth of a three-dimensional space, its gentle, flat appearance creating a "white hole," a vision of endless absorption. At the same time, while you focus your attention, the turmoil of the outside world fades away. 

The image, the landscape, and the lights and darks are no longer targets for the spheres to seize, and the artist's seeking to unify the structure and ever-increasing infatuation allow the sphere itself to cast a light on its spiritual power and its mechanism of action. By concentrating completely on the painting and viewing the action with rapt attention, the image itself becomes an exercise in deep concentration. They are thus transmuted into pure form, a ritual elimination of viewing the subject onsite, to the extent that related objects onsite become so many different grains of rice, assembled, rising, floating, and finally disintegrating as they're packed together, transforming into even tinier grains, dissipating into mystical particles of light. Applied by different colors, each sphere is like the flickering of a cursor, waiting for a response.

Li Shurui (b. 1981, Chongqing) received her BFA at Sichuan Fine Arts Institute (SFAI) in 2004. Li was granted 2016 New York Fellowship Program of Asian Cultural Council (ACC). Recent exhibitions include Constellation, Georgian National Museum Dimitri Shevardnadze National Gallery, Tbilisi, Georgia (2017); No Man’s Land: Women Artists from the Rubell Family Collection, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington D.C., USA (2016);Turning Point: Contemporary Art in China Since 2000, Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai, China (2016); No Longer / Not Yet, Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai, China (2015); Jing Shen: The Act of Painting in Contemporary China, Padiglione d'Arte Contemporanea (PAC), Milan, Italy (2015); 28 Chinese, Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, USA (2015); About Painting, OCT Contemporary Art Terminal (OCAT), Xi'An, China (2014). Li Shurui currently lives and works in Beijing.

Wang Rui: You weren't supposed to be able to get here you know, 2018.6.20 - 7.20

A breeze from the cyber realm can either make you feel dazed or at ease. Dashing through the highway of information under the disguise of a virtual identity does not mean one can completely vanish amidst data and calculations. On the contrary, this journey creates new lives. A member of the new generation that grew up under the power of the Internet, Wang Rui chooses to live a balanced existence within this endless information, as she immersed herself in the novelty of surfing the Internet and embraced every true happening in reality with increased sincerity and sensitivity.

Negative consequences are obvious when one is connected, bodily and emotionally, to the Internet, as every search is marked by passive and predictable data, overindulged searching numbs our senses and the trapping of information blurs fiction and reality, but that does not prevent Wang Rui from pursuing and creating her own algorithm. “You weren’t supposed to be able to get here you know” is a slogan that the artist found online. Not being able to judge its authenticity, the slogan resembles a kind of reminder from a prophet, hinting at an unknown secret and the danger of exploring desire. The ever-changing cyber images become the artist’s way of observing and documenting the fragments of our space-time. In her solo exhibition at Salt Projects, Wang Rui takes a witty approach to construct a route for transformation of self-identity, emotion and desire, presenting her fresh perceptions of the real world based on her experiences in the cyber realm.

Yanyan Huang: Cloud Tempo, 2017.11.4 - 12.10

A recurring force comes into existence in Yanyan Huang's painting. Within the world constructed by these gestural forces, superficial intellectual games appear awkward, absurd, and ineffective. From beginning to end, life is the vehicle that ignites thinking—not the reverse—which acts in a pas-de-deux with our reality. Intellectual anxiety turns into anxiety about the death of our existence and the existence of time itself. Through her repetitive and ever-altering process, Huang falls deep into immeasurable and placeless Time, to restore beauty and recover the poetics of life. Her work acts as evidence and maps to contemporality—they shape an unconscious view of time and become Time-itself.

Born 1988 in Sichuan, China, Yanyan Huang is based between Beijing, New York, Los Angeles, and Florence. Deriving influence from a range of cultures and locales, her work maps out an complex array of geographies, identities, and relationships. Recent solo shows include “Nebbia del Tempo” at Ibid Gallery (Los Angeles, 2017), “Giardino del Tempo”at Tomorrow Gallery (New York, NY) and “Ex Silentio” at CURA’s Basement Roma (Rome, Italy), both in 2016.

Chang Yuchen: A Fine Art Show (Beauty is Truth.), 2017.9.10 - 10.8

The modest quality of Chang Yuchen's works can be understood as a calm sort of guise. Making use of the natural tendencies of the qualities of the material, or of smaller works, she takes delight in repeating the simplicity of the form and image. In her work, Chang Yuchen seemingly tries to construct the sentiment of an exploratory sketch, and simultaneously view the production of the image in opposing ways. The scope of this exhibition perfectly suits and brings together the artist's recent work and thinking. In her works, the predominant visual perception is of lights and darks gradually shifting and light and shadow pulsing, which makes us step forth in our understanding of the foundation anew: if one were to say "capital = the body" has become an evil practice of modern culture that we just can't shake, then can't revisiting the sketch, which was once an ideology inseparably entwined with practice, open up a deeper exploration into the history of aesthetics?

Chang Yuchen (b.1989, China) graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (MFA) in 2013 and Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing (BFA) in 2011. She currently lives between New York and Beijing. Yuchen’s works have been exhibited internationally. Her solo shows include Barbaric Poetry at Between Art Lab (Beijing) and Snake and Others at Fou Gallery (New York), and has participated in group shows at the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts (New York), Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art, San Francisco Center for the Book, Boston University Art Gallery, Today Art Museum (Beijing), and CAFA Museum (Beijing), among others. She has given lectures and performed at Salt Projects (Beijing), Momenta Art (New York) and Printed Matter Inc. (New York). Her works can be found in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art Library (New York) and Joan Flasch Artists’ Book Collection (Chicago), among others. Yuchen is the recipient of Luminarts Fellowship in 2012. Starting fall 2017, she will be one of the artists-in-residence at the Textile Arts Center (New York). She is also a Sales Assistant at Printed Matter Inc. and the founder of usevalue.work.