Founded in 2012 when its three members reunited in Saigon, Art Labor was borne of a shared interest in interdisciplinary collaborations that experimentally and exigently test the social parameters of art. As Art Labor works with and through communities, their artistic practice is not characterized by creative ownership over self-made art objects, but rather by long-term social engagement and intangible, interpersonal bonds.

When images enter the virtual world, all physicality is left behind, their weight eliminated, their size adjustable, and only a virtual shadowing resurrected. One day, when we have nothing left of ourselves but images, will they too have shadows?

Cui Jie, an artist who came of age in the 1980s and 90s, shows a keen grasp on the various architectural patterns that have had a profound effect on the rapid renewal and expansion process of Chinese cities, and is adept at selectively harking back to these precedents of modernization in her painting and sculptural practice, thus triggering a momentary sense of the immediate future.

In an age of increasingly volatile political visions, “The Racing Will Continue, The Dancing Will Stay” may be regarded as a positive attempt to tease out and touch on issues that aren’t brought up all too often.

There is a wide diversity of practices—from video to sculpture to painting, from Asia and Europe and North America, with a wide variety of concern—in the encyclopedic show of contemporary art practices showcased now at Rockbund, but what seems to unify them is a simmering dissatisfaction with the world as it is.

LEAP discusses with the curator Cuauhtémoc Medina the complex web of references in his curatorial and research work.

Julie Mehretu’s works require space: large walls and a great distance for the eye to take in the entire picture that rises and stretches, up to several meters above the viewer, who is both dwarfed and dazzled by its dimensions.

As the Centre Pompidou visits Chengdu, proposing a “Cosmopolis,” it’s fair to ask: why do the people of Chengdu need to pay the Centre Pompidou in order to discover themselves?

In Wang Haiyang’s artworks, the erosion and mortality of the human form give rise to other versions of vibrant life and embodiment.

A documentary filmmaker turned artist, Mao Chenyu thrives on the contradictions between the white and black spaces. Strategies of resistance from both the white and black discourses are organized into an aesthetic experience of the “green.”

In an era where geopolitics is being renegotiated, Chihying asks if new relationships are really a break with the past, or if there are still uncomfortable continuities and tendencies.

  Inside a moon-like circle on the back cover of The Pillow Book is a list of things it is not: “Not a memoir. Not an epic. Not an essay. Not a spell. Not a shopping list. Not a nocturne. Not a dream book. Not a prayer. Not a novel. Not an apology. Not a…

Objectophilia is an attraction to inanimate objects, so Bloodzboi and Fotan’s collaboration on Dong Leng Cha is an objectphillia rap song: An ode to the refreshing delicacy, Lemon Ice Tea. It’s not so…

  For his recent paintings, presented by Ota Fine Arts at Condo Shanghai, Singaporean painter Guo-Liang Tan chose an aeronautical fabric as his canvas. A bizarre choice, given that the fabric is water-resistant and would therefore not absorb paint. In order to even begin painting, Tan had to first seal the fabric with acrylic. In…

  Curators of contemporary Chinese art abroad often face many challenges. The third installment of the Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Chinese Art Initiative, the theme of One Hand Clapping is …

The figures and elements that populate Fu’s paintings are easily recognizable ones, but Fu renders them in a simplistic and at times unfinished manner—most are only silhouettes—which makes them nebulous and creates a dearth of information that can be gleaned.

These frontiers are critically investigated and presented in their complexity, and these aesthetic forms refuse to subjugate to existing and dominant apparatus of the sensible. It exemplifies what Vivian Ziherl raised as a frontier formalism: “frontier formalism is strongly invested in aesthetic tactics of representation through rebellious images; images that chafe against existing arrangements and that posit undeniable demands for another shape and sound of the global symphony.”

“Wetland” exists in the ambiguity between wet and dry states. Within the designated five-hour duration of the exhibition, its temporary state mirrors a constantly changing wetland; it can disappear at any time but contains the possibility to exist in other forms.

Jes Fan, Mother Is A Woman, 2018, video, sound, color, 4 min 44 sec. Videographer: Asa Westcott.   What is a body made of, and how does that impact the way it is perceived? Does an impression of a body reflect its constitution? Artist Jes Fan posits these queries by investigating how the material science of…

Wong Kit Yi, Uploading Consciousness to a Lotus Root, 2018, single channel HD Video, 20 min. I made a promise that expires in 99 years [1]. At the Golden Computer Centre [2], I transferred my body’s lease on life to the Emperor. Filled out the form: red hair, pale skin, female. Couldn’t remember my birthdate….