Contemporary Art’s Beginnings in China @ TAM

Stepping into the Taikang Art Museum (TAM) once more, curators Xu Chongbao, Ruan Jingjing, and Hui Hao led the viewer on an art historical venture through the advent of Chinese contemporary history in 1980’s x 1990’s Time Unfinished. With all artworks sources from the institutional collection of the museum, Xu, Ruan, and Hui host this journey and split the exhibition up via emotions: soothing, deep, cheerful, varied, romantic, profound, warm, serene, vibrant, tense, and tragic. Starting with “soothing”, a mini replica of Auguste Rodin’s Thinker (1903), sits on a pedestal reminding the viewer of its large impact on the general public of the time as the piece sparked conversation and reminded Chinese citizens of the value of contemplation in the 80s.

As a disclosure, much of the conversation surrounding the timeline of contemporary art and its place in China is to be contested. Within this article, I would like to take the stance that it does exist, it has been documented, and the show is supporting the timeline of that through the works on view to stay in context with the exhibition which is chronicling how this part of recent art history began in the 80s and progressed through the 90s.

Wang Keping follows in the section swiftly after with Head of the Family (1988). Keping is a vital player of the Chinese contemporary art scene bing one of the founding members of the Starts Art Group and a participant of both Stars Art Exhibitions in 1979 and 1980. The work connects to the organic nature of the human body and is a call for liberation within the context of its time.

Moving into Deep, Yuan Qingyi’s Spring Has Come (1984) communicated within the title and content of the painting which depicts a male in casual clothing, looking back at his minimalistic apartment, housing a simple wooden chair, desk, and notebook and pen resting on top. The piece was a standout achievement which marked a transition of living, thought, and artistic practice in the 85 New Wave Movement. Along with Xu Jing’s Zero Hour (1985), Geng Jianyi’s Hair Cut Series No. 1 (1985), and Xing Wei’s Lighthouse (1998) Deep turned a corner in the exhibition to showcase metaphorical works with conceptual underpinnings and emotional foundations as China continues to grow in industry and artistically.

Following the trend of Soothing and Deep, the exhibition’s remaining emotions no doubt hosted essential works which contributed to China’s contemporary art evolution, connected to these emotions some curatorial choices seemed a bit loose at times. I will admit this might be due to my less than legible allegiance to Chinese national pride. Some things even scholars cannot and do not immediately “get”/ grasp whin it’s clearly in front of them. Which I will admit I’m guilty of.

My focus more specifically is Chinese contemporary performance art and what really more than shocked and definitely floored me was the Tense section of the show.

Majority of it was an homage to performance art in the 80’s. With it being essentially banned, (with some exceptions that are particularly famous) documentation of performance art at a large and prestigious contemporary art museum like TAM excited me and drew me into a fascination, a query, and an awe that these works were so well preserved and respected. I felt like an utter nerd. Based on my understanding and the books I’d read these artists were respected in their field, but not necessarily in the eyes of the Ministry of Culture, who would have approved and screened this show.

I wondered why these pieces specifically. Although the inner undergraduate in me was just ecstatic to see some of the work of artists I had lauded over for the majority of senior year only through screens and books. Here, the ephemera was in perfect condition and celebrated to my surprise.

Performance art in China changed the boundaries of how far artists were able to express themselves. From surgical rib removing actions from He Yunchang, to the tamer pieces I saw in Tense, like Zhang Huan’s (who was no tame artist by any stretch of the imagination) facial distortion documentation Skin (Set of 20) (1997), which is a nod to how people shapeshift in society and larger questions about who we are within society and if it molds our being.

I also quite enjoyed Vibrant, as the curators clearly communicated the joy and excitement of opening up times in their choices within the section like Shu Qun’s The Complete Collection of World Art Series – U.S. Volume 1 (1991), Chen Ren’s Breakthrough and Chen Baosheng’s Horse Series (Set of 6) (1980). My impression here is that the feelings included with China’s emergence onto the international stage that were felt by its citizens were many and complex, especially as artists navigated new methods of making, the pressure to perform now against hundreds of other artists on a global scale instead of mere chosen few and were flooded with new ideas from foreign influences. Their intellectual counterparts were in the same boat, trying to disseminate sense of it all and provide it to those that would listen and were open.

Although I admitted earlier to my ignorance in not understanding some choices in the show, at the end of the day the show is not meant for me in the way it’s meant for the average Chinese artist, intellectual, or citizen. In that way, I’m honored to be excluded and happy that this piece of this collection of works and history is felt in the way it is meant to be felt for those that can really tap into the Chinese pride which accompanies the rise of contemporary Chinese art from the 80s to the 90s.

1980s x 1990s Time Unfinished was on view at the Taikang Art Museum in Beijing, China from March 30th, 2025 through June 15th, 2025.

TAM Technological Treat

Curators William Latham, Tang Xin and Zhou Yi came together for an exploration and anthropological display of the enmeshment of new media and technology in the arts since the 1950’s and where its leading/ has led artists today. The timeline of technology was split into three sections: Contemporary, History and Education. Majority of the exhibition covered more recent work by living artists. The Contemporary section led the charge in the front and the very end in galleries 1-3 and 5 as well as upstairs in galleries 6,7, and 8 with the History section splitting up the contemporary galleries in gallery 4 and the Education section at the very end of the show in gallery 9. The show acknowledged works and pioneers like the “Mother of Computer Art” ,Benoit Monar, the creator of AAARON – one of the earliest robot artists (machines), Harold Cohen, and trailblazer in 3D animation, Craig Reynolds.

Education and History in this way provided an in-depth overview of how digital arts was conceived for those new to the subject. The majority of the exhibition sought to bring light to how the work of these pioneers made groundbreaking discoveries and contributions to the medium which has resulted in the contemporary sector being explored and experimented in today. The Contemporary portion showcases robotic installations, AI generated video arts, interactive art, algorithm lead and computer art. So here Tang, Latham, and Zhou support the new wave of AI art gets its shine while archiving the history/ having an archeological perspective of digital / new-media arts. 

Walking into the Taikang Art Museum (TAM) I was immediately met with William Latham and Stephan Todd’s Human Mutator Azure (2024) a digital art piece made from the software Mutator Form Grow, physics equations, AI software which combined generates a microscopic three-dimensional like view of germs as they grow in a petri-dish if they had a primary color palette.

The generative software whirrs in cycles making unique yet similar tails which extend from their germ like centers, one atop the other. They fill the screen over and over again. The color palette altering from something similar to Window’s first generation and the ink cartridges you buy for your home printer. Azure is a algorithmic piece which responds to the movements that viewers make constructing the images seen on the screen. Unaware of this at first my initial question for the piece was what is motivating the movement to occur. Now with the knowledge that it is indeed the human. I speculate that algorithmic generative intelligence like this might need humans to support their output, what happens when that stored information feeds its creativity?

To the left and behind me in an alcove gallery, Chando Ao’s I’m a Fish (2018-ongoing), an installation with equally spaced silver metal spheres line that the entire area of the gallery and machine with a cubed base, four gear-like wheels that travels a fish around is a fresh breath of air. The fish is atop the machine in a clear perfectly round glass sphere filled with water, clear globes, and a silver curved cone at its peak with a wire connecting it back to the machine. There is also a black hole shaped motorized creation which is also on wheels, seeming to respond to the first vehicle with a fish inside. I noticed that the silver globes on lining the room were polished to perfection, so clear that my reflection was remitting through the entire space. My initial thoughts were that it’s quircky, funny, yet restrictive piece. The boundaries of the fish, viewer, machine, and space are all clearly allocated. Now reflecting, I wonder who the viewer is. The fish? The visitor? The artist? A question which remains to be seen.

Moving on to the third gallery of the first floor, another piece which has caught international acclaim and my eye, was Memo Akten and Katie Peyton Hofstadter’s Superradiance (2024) A multiscreen video sound installation which was mesmerizing and then frightening. The sublime parts of the video were organic shapes that mimic plants and shapeshifted between complex shapes to the living organisms that we all know and love. And as those organic shapes constructed bodies this did not faze me either. The frightening part for me when I realized that the generative floral essence of the AI simulated faces. As faces started to metabolize, I reached my limit as I was unsure if this installation had been prerecorded or if there was an algorithm that was imitating humans as it’s becoming more complex in its collection of information. According to the work’s website,

“Superradiance leverages the cognitive phenomenon of ‘embodied simulation,’ in an immersive, ritual sanctuary, where invisible dancers embedded in animate environments transform forests, oceans, and deserts into extensions of our own bodies. And where technological mediation becomes a means of exploring embodied consciousness rather than escaping it.”[1]

After reading about the duo’s goals in this endeavor, my understanding shifted as the work in frightening me was actually doing its job. My reaction to that portion of the work, I was not able to flee into the sublime essence that images of colliding almost psychedelic details of never-ending landscapes and close cuts of animals imbue. I was confronted with humanity, and in that humanity that there is another foreign player in the game now. I was confronted with the fact that AI is here and collaborating with artists in a way that is not going to slow down anytime soon.

The remainder of the exhibition hosted a plethora of interactive installations with virtual simulations, futuristic garments, and an ongoing installation, Matrix, which I will be writing on very soon.

A side note. I’m sure many others feel the same I do, that AI is being pushed onto the general public like crack in the 80’s. I really want to get back to the point in time where we didn’t have machines thinking or doing anything for our cognitive thinking. Or where they had very little influence on what we thought at all. Simple machines that did simple things. Call me a quack. I’d like simple life back. To hell with AI. My feelings aside, still a good exhibition.

I found the historical and educational sections of the exhibition to be so illuminating and that they eased me into the longer form history of what came before and enlightened the contemporary portion of the show. These kinds of additions to exhibitions are what I as an academic crave: to be subtly informed, with context, human stories, and substantive research, for me to inquire or leave at the gallery what I may. Although, I personally have my own qualms with AI, the exhibition as an archival, archeological feat on tech/ new-media/ media art to me was a success in that it educated, exposed, and provided a logical timeline of this medium / sector of art making. I was intrigued, until it scared me. And that’s what is said of much of the unknown.

[1] Akten, Memo, Hofstadter, Katie Peyton, “Superradience”. https://superradiance.net, Accessed August 6, 2025

Please refer to the full article to view artworks.

Studio Visit with Kwamé Azure Gomez

April 9th, 2025

I woke up at 4:30 AM scrambling to put on a decent shirt and prop up my phone. FaceTime can sometimes be the worst when I need it to be the best. After many failed attempts to get on that app, we settled on Instagram video call. Kwamé Azure Gomez is a painter from Akron, OH dealing with themes of Black futures, fullness, and actualization. Settling in, I asked them what I usually do, “How are you?“, and then I ask again, “But how are you doing?”

They look at me and admit that they have been busy, excited, anxious, immersed, detached, and filled with the waves of human reaction, that one might experience when faced with such a riveting time such as this. Gomez, is one of the 2024-2025 Artists in Residence at NXTHVN in New Haven , Connecticut. Gomez, along with 7 other artists, and 2 curators were selected to over the course of a year receive space to dig into their practice, receive critical analysis, research resources, and professional development. The year is almost finished, and they hosted studio visits earlier this month to debut the work that has been brewing over the course of the residency.

I admitted to them “I should have stayed off of Instagram, I’ve been thinking about your paintings before we even began speaking. I wanted it to be fresh and a first impression.“ I’d seen congratulations posts all over my timeline about this milestone in her practice.

They weren’t fazed by this admission as we slipped into some catching up and I congratulate her on all the success her studio visits have been lending. I won’t say how, but it’s definitely a good time for her!

She takes her phone around to show me every single work which are massive canvases taped to the walls with whooshing backdrops of singular colors, and their hues. Red, pink, brown, green. Inside of these abstractions are limbs, hands, and forearms. Is there wind? Is it a depiction of air?

After viewing all of the newer large works and their smaller color studies, we sit and Kwamé speaks. Last year, was one of the hardest times of her life, she was struggling with OCD, working a job that was paying her but wasn’t fulfilling, and she was making multimedia collage that was going to “drive her crazy if I didn’t move on“.

Then she saw a call for NXTHVN, applied on the last day at the last second and was accepted. It changed the trajectory of her practice and allowed her to release the control her mind had over her making.

So now, we’re here on two different sides of the planet talking to what I feel is a completely different artist. After asking them what material are they pulling the response is “Actually my work deals heavily in research of the ballroom culture. It is also a rejection of suggestions in grad school that I would have to look to male white artists to be successful with abstraction.” I mentioned that this collection felt different not only in the size, color ways, and strokes but also the immediate emotion associated with them. There is a sense of an exhale, a release of tension throughout that you can only get with a painter who has truly dug into themselves to unleash their own understanding of the inner voice and void.

From my perspective Gomez’s works embody an abstraction as fluid movement and irrivocable feeling. Her works speak to that returning to self that we all experience if we are moving towards evolution, out of comfort, and into purpose. I also see a slight connection between Chinese aesthetics and the new works. Explaining the concept 实质 （shizhi) which directly translates to substance or essense, which basically is the ability to create a forth dimension within the work. I emphasized how all Chinese master painters must control this skill before entering into the field and those that handle it the best receive more accolades. Noting that there is an intangible vacuum that Kwamé presents in the work that supports it as an insular world within another solitary universe, the similarities between her work and that of Chinese masters have many parallels. From how the voracity of the work though this “substance“ and then its fluidity draws the viewer in to the anger, rage, and whimsical sweat that we can feel from each canvases runway.

I spoke with her also on the use of anger and letting it guide her through this portion of her journey as an artist and they “had never let anger enter my work before“. There, in rage, frustration, excitement, and being, Kwamé was met with an unleashing of their next step and possibly the most crucial in this moment of their success. To guide their own future and move further into a realm which I am most elated to watch.

Kwamé Azure Gomez’s most recent work will be on view in the NXTHVN Cohort 06’s culminating group exhibition, The Things Left Unsaid, at James Cohan’s Grand Street location in New York, NY curated by Curatorial Fellow Rigoberto Luna from May 8 to June 21, 2025. Fellows Baris Gokturk, Patrick Henry, Kristy Hughes, Christopher Paul Jordan, Reeha Lim, and Napoles Marty, will also be on view. In the press release from James Cohan Gallery the exhibition will explore “interconnected questions of belonging, adaptation, absence, and resilience”, I am elated to be able to talk with Kwamé on this freeing step in her path on finding new selves in this work that relinquish deprevaty and embrace histories, expression, and self-truth. 

James Cohan will host the opening reception on Thursday, May 8 from 6-8 PM and an artist talk on May 29 from 6-8 PM. You’re not going to want to miss it!

The Sight of Touch at White Space

Echo Chamber by Lukas Lucius Leichte at White Space in Beijing’s Art Bounded Zone stretches your pupil to see the texture, heat, and sensuality of skin. I unexpectedly saw the exhibition after viewing Chen QIn’s Mangrove at Tang Contemporary’s headquarters. I’m happy I stoped in though because the work made me feel as if I was in bed with a stranger, like I was being held, and as if I was hiding under a sheet counting the hairs on a lover’s back.

Walking into the gallery you’re met with white walls and an almost circular gallery with a thick column standing in the center. Directly across Pushing Outward (2024) nearly beckons, as the single gesture of a clasped hand fidgeting at best. Thumb over middle finger, pointer finger resting on the skin right below the nailed of the thumb as it presses on the index finger with the pinky hiding below, only a bit more than half of its nail visible. The glossy skin suggests warmth in the body, while the posture of the five digits suggests contemplation, irritability, there’s also a chance of excess energy of the body searching for a way out through tensing.

Tension. I’m seeing this again in majority of the works, especially both Untitled (2025) paintings. Here, almost identical painting hang adjacent to one another. One more red, shoulder pulled back practically smashed into the sheet as if it were accidentally placed there. The lat pressed on the bedside basically clamped, neck barely visible and right ribcage curved from stretching to accommodate the spine, the elbow is angled and looks trapped. One a tinge more blue, the elbow is housed in the space between the bottom of the lat and bottom of the spine. The curvature of the spine is less, but the ribs are much more visible, the neck is wrinkled to right which is free from the sheets which are looser in wrinkles. Tensed in a way that leans into relaxation, rest, or sleep after a hard day. Both share their similarities, but neither imbue identical impulses.

You can see the humid nature of the skin, you can collect the soft feel of cotton in your irises. Leitche manages to pull the viewer into these intimacies of the moments which pass when we are in our most vulnerable state: lying on ribcage, walking tip-toed across the floor in secret, looking at how the shadows are cast as light shines through a lonely window. The work lets time stand still, and the largest organ of the body shine as a beacon to caress your seeing and light up your senses Echo Chamber was on view at White Space between February 22 and May 3rd, 2025. If you would like to inquire with the gallery for more information they can be reached via email: info@whitespace-beijing.com.

Please refer to: for the full article for visuals of the artworks.

Ireland Touches Beijing: A Mutual Understanding of the Tree

April 18th, 2025

Better late than never…

Last spring, I was invited to attend the opening of Trees — The Great Connectors at Red Gate Gallery by my colleague David Brubaker, who spoke about duo show between Irish native, Niamh Cunningham who has been based in China for quite some time now and Zhang Zhaohui one of China’s well known abstract artists and calligraphers. Both artists explore the realm of nature; for Cunningham acrylic or multimedia painting with film, for Zhang photography and calligraphy.

Electric Fronds, Acrylic on Canvas, 120 × 100 cm, 2023

I remember walking into the gallery surrounded by diplomats, poets, filmmakers, and art enthusiasts which were all brought together for the two artists’ collaboration. Looking through the show there was a contrast between Cunningham’s large scaled paintings and Zhang’s dynamic monochrome calligraphy which point to Chinese motifs and analogies.

Naimh’s colorful depictions of nature in the show take the viewer into a world of majestic giant trees and vibrant green scapes as if they were looking towards the sky and encapsulated by a large forest. This inverse fisheye lens view within her paintings is vibrant and two diementional yet and still supporting the viewers entry into nature.

Zhang’s practice has spanned many decades and is a combination of calligraphy and ink painting in a contemporary context. The exhibition included the photo work Stay Together (2010) which captures a mirror material cut in the shape of the male and female symbols normally found on public bathroom doors. Both cutouts were placed in the middle of a lake. Because of the reflective material of the cutouts, they both stand together mirroring to the camera the view of serene mountains, forestry and surrounding lake. The work immediately has the impression on the viewer as a oneness with nature and a necessity to not put ourselves in a caste system to separate from it. Another photo work, Tree in the Woods (2024), documents Zhang’s dypthic of three ink painted panels installed on three separate trees in the woods of Massechusetts where he recently spent some time on residency. Again, he works with his own creations within nature pairing the manmade with as the Chinese would say 天做 or God made. Comparatively making the large scale production of industry goods small when engulfed in the bigger natural world.

Zhang Zhaohui, David A. Brubaker, Brian Wallace, and Niamh Cunningham (left to right) standing to the right of Zhang’s multi-paneled ink painting Tree (2024).

Zhang’s larger than life calligraphy was most prominent in the exhibition, with floor to ceiling works that displayed varying hues of black ink paintings. The largest being, Tree (2024), a massive multi panel piece which when put together spell out the character 森林 （shen lin) which is mandarin for “forest”. The scaling achievement must have been at least nine to ten feet and hovered over all of us. Zhang mentioned that his works are deeply influenced by the natural world and he hopes that it can bring us closer to it. Although, there is an abstraction to the work that the viewer must sit with, Chinese attendees immediately understood its meaning speaking at length about its relevance to the traditional proverb: 前人栽树后人乘凉 (Qian ren she you ran sheng Jing) which translates to “old generation plant tree and younger take the shade”. The proverb means to make a fortune for the offspring. In his own way, Zhong’s work is an expression of leaving his appreciation of nature as a fortune for those that comes after him.

Although the larger colorful acrylic paintings were captivating, I was pulled in by Niamh’s work which uses sugar. The Sucrose Series, plays with a sugar film, and coats the underlying landscapes in a chrysalis leaving the viewer with a foggy coat that is textured and snow like.

I approached Cunningham for comment and she was able to explain the work much better than I will attempt:

“The Sucrose Series is a mixed media photographic process. The process uses photography as the through line and involves a fresh  print of my favorite nature scenes around Beijing on cotton paper.  The areas for sucrose 'Curved Path' is small Willow glade in Olympic park and the sucrose work 'Ice Willow' the original image was taken Winter time at the Summer Palace where people were playing with ice sleighs and ice bikes on the lake. A layer of hot sugar is placed over this pulling colour particles  from the printed surface into the sugar mixture .The mixture dries and starts to crystalise which pushes the color particles (which were in solution) a little bit , thus color continues to move even after the creation event .I  take dozen of images during the crystalization process capturing the changes over 3- 5 months and I consider the process prints are the actual artwork. The Sucrose Series can be seen as a metaphor for our biosphere where so many feedbacks are happening (with pollution, Nitrogen and Carbon cycles ect...) it is difficult to understand what addition is causing which effect . This was my first attempt to address environmental changes in her art making .”

From this process which delves into experimentation, separation, and fragmenting the image, comes a body of work that seamlessly deals with time, joy, and an affinity for the world that surrounds us — specific to Beijing.

Cunningham’s Tree Stories films were also on view which documented her time surveying multitudes of communities all over the world about their relationship to the surrounding world.

Curved Path Blue (Original Sucrose), Sucrose Mixed Media, 29 x 50 cm (2020)

I gathered from the show both artists’ emotional and maybe even spiritual connection to some of the largest breathing plants we have on earth, and the lively athmosphere of this spontaneous one weekend show was something to marvel as it flew in and out of Red Gate Gallery’s doors. Both Cunningham and Zhang conceptualized their work in a multitude of methods which were not only engaging in sight, but simply speak the language of people who seek to have a greater connection to our tall wooded friends.

Trees — The Great Connectors was on view November 2, 2024 - November 3rd, 2025.