Exhibition Dates:
Shen Xin (January 28 to February 8)
Sharon Hayes (February 25 to March 8)
Zou Zhao Xi Xi (April 1 to April 12)
Christian Falsnaes (April 22 to May 3)
What unites the four artists in CAG’s exhibition project is their use of live performance, interaction with the audience, notions of ritual and group mentality, speeches and singing employed for didactic recitation along with facets such as crowd incitement and persuasion.
About the four artists:
Shen Xin:
Shen Xin was born in Chengdu in 1990. She is currently living and working in London and Amsterdam. Shen Xin graduated from LASALLE College of the Arts in Singapore in 2012 before she went on to earn her MFA from the Slade School of Fine Art in London in 2014. Through images and events, Shen explores emotions, value judgements and ethics that circulate through individual and collective subjects. Her recent solo exhibitions include half-sung, half spoken at Serpentine Galleries, London (2017); Strongholds at Lychee One, London (2017); At Home at Surplus Space, Wuhan (2016); and Shoulders of Giants at Senate House, London (2015). Her work was featured in group exhibitions at the New Museum Triennial (2018); The New Normal at the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing (2017); and Frontier at the OCT Contemporary Art Terminal Shanghai (2017). Shen was awarded the BALTIC Artists’ Award in 2017. She will take part in the 2018–19 artist-in-residence programme offered by Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten, Amsterdam.
Sharon Hayes
American artist Sharon Hayes uses photography, film, video, sound, performance, and text to interrogate the intersections between the personal and collective sphere. Her deeply affective and queer approach to history and politics draws particular attention to the language of twentieth-century activism as well as drama, anthropology, and journalism.
A professor of fine art at the University of Pennsylvania, Hayes’s work has been shown at the 2010 Whitney Biennial, Documenta 12 in Kassel, and the 55th Venice Biennale, as well as in the most prestigious museums around the world. Her re-examination of protest, speech, and history is one of the most powerful reflections of the complexity and the urgency of our times.
Zou Zhao
Zou Zhao was born in 1989 in Fujian, China. She graduated from the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London, with a BA in Fine Art, and completed her Masters degree in Contemporary Art Theory at Goldsmiths, University of London, in 2014. Her work has been shown in London at various venues, including the Camden Art Centre (2013), the UCL Art Museum (2013), No Where art space (2014), the Chinese Visual Festival (2014) and at Double Vision: Oversees, Chinese Women Invitation Exhibition 2014, He Xiang Ning Art Museum, China. She has also co-curated The Strange Impression of seeing things for the first time at the Art Pavilion in 2013 in London, and was the recipient of the Berenice Goodwin Award for Performance from the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London in 2013.
Christian Falsnaes
Unsuspecting exhibition visitors become part of Christian Falsnaes’ performances. In his work, he deals with the notions of ritual and group mentality, including himself and the role of the artist. What happens when people – especially those who are used to the rituals and dynamics of highly codified social fields such as the art world – have to give up control? Falsnaes employs directives to underscore the significance of individual will, turning the reactions of his audiences into material for their own self-reflection.