Danish artist Danh Vo is currently presenting his first solo exhibition in China, “Danh Vo: We the People,” at Faurschou Foundation in Beijing. On this occasion, LEAP conducted an exclusive interview with the artist that resulted in an in-depth dialogue revolving around Vo’s working methods, the relationship between his personal identity and his practice, the…

I There are places we end up when we don’t really belong anywhere else. This sense of not-belonging, it is naturally felt by those existing on the fringes of society. There of course is no “outside” o…

THE FIRST TIME you saw this installation was at the opening of his studio. It was in the back of the factory, where few guests ventured. You walked toward this corner and turned, arriving in a dark, low-ceilinged room. At first glance, the installation looked like a countertop in some bar, but with an air…

Yang Fudong’s New Women premiered at a special exhibition during the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival. Shown in black and white on five screens arranged in a row on one gallery wall, New Women stood in contrast to its surroundings, an intense installation by Christopher Doyle called Away with Words. One of the most important…

DRAWING CONTOURS ON PAPER, Wen Ling takes his time as he creates frame after frame of images from his daily life. With no strict storyboard, Wen draws what he sees and experiences in quivering traces of ink on paper. Say life is like one extended take. Wen Ling is aware that the memorable scenes are…

The paintings of Zhang Hui offer neither fulfilling content nor aestheticism, and despite depicting concrete objects and scenes with clear brushstrokes, do not make reference to the real world in any clear way. Instead, his paintings move unhurriedly towards the image as the outcome of the duty stipulated by the act of painting, and stop…

LI SHURUI’S series of paintings “Lights” has found a relatively reasoned form of visual expression, to the point where the paintings look almost too proficient. It has been nearly ten years since she …

In 1973, the artist Cheo Chai-Hiang set down his thoughts on art and its predicaments at some length. The text was written in Chinese and titled (in translation) “Written for the Occasion of 8th Moder…

ON RADICAL ART: The 80s Scene in Shanghai is a historical reflection on the paucity of language and ideological resources. Despite its title, On Radical Art: The 80s Scene in Shanghai covers a period …

At the opening of “Topophilia,” bottles of Taiwan Beer and cartons of Long Life cigarettes set on round tables at one end of the gallery gave viewers momentary pause. The scene, straight out of a home…

Bharti Kher’s first solo exhibition in China brings together her most representative works. The perplexing title of this exhibition is shared by an installation at the entrance, that of a hyena (more …

How do you pull off a solo exhibition with painting as its core in a 400-square-meter gallery with a ceiling that reaches 12 meters high at its peak? This space has previously hosted massive, visually aggressive, and spatially oppressive installations, such as Sun Yuan and Peng Yu’s contemporary spectacle Freedom, macro-narrative fabrications like Huang Yong…

The Beijing and Zurich-based curator Li Zhenhua has nearly 15 years of experience working in new art, and to some extent has become a spokesperson for the field. He explains, “In my work, I attempt to…

The use of the term “digital art” in “The Wrong— New Digital Art Biennale” is intriguing. Evoking a medium specificity that recalls the often maligned, dated domain of new media art, but suggesting a …

IN SOUTHEAST ASIAN countries that declared independence after the Second World War, it is not uncommon for the government to take charge of national literary and artistic development. Whether they are…

Since the 1990s, few events happening on the street or in public space in China have officially entered the public view. For the majority of people, the word “public space” seems to carry little meaning. The terms quanzi (circle) and jianghu (rivers and lakes), on the contrary, make a strong impression. Quanzi in Chinese society…

How long is mourning? (Dictionary, Memorandum): eighteen months for a father, a mother ——Roland Barthes, Mourning Diary, October 29, 1977 Roland Barthes started writing his Mourning Diary, October 26,…

For one artist to decide to create work in tandem with another always carries with it the risk of hit or miss. The meeting of uniquely subjective minds can be as dissonant and detrimental as it can harmonious and supplemental. Ideally, of course, the latter is achieved—two heads are better than one. In the case…

The American poet Emily Elizabeth Dickinson once wrote: “To make a prairie, it takes a clover and one bee, / One clover, and a bee. / And revery.” For Spencer Finch, making a glacier takes a few candles to burn and then fade out (Shanghai Glacier). Finch regularly refers to the poems of Emily Dickinson,…

Over the past 20 years, James M. Bradburne has sat at the helm of various cultural institutions. From the interactive science center New Metropolis in Amsterdam to Europe’s first wireless museum Museum for Applied Art in Frankfurt, each has been unique in its own right. Currently, he directs the Palazzo Strozzi, Florence’s laboratory for cultural…