He Xiangyu’s conceptual practice manifests in multi-year projects that span sculpture, drawing, installation, and video. Emerging as part of a generation of artists who experienced rapid urbanization in China during their upbringing, Xiangyu’s work looks to shift the viewer’s perception of cultural signifiers through an examination and manipulation of material. Divergent in their aesthetic, Xiangyu’s projects aim to investigate an array of personal, social, and political themes, addressing cultural boundaries and the commercialized status of contemporary art.
He’s work is currently the subject of three solo shows: The Memory of Stillness, on view through November 17 at Manshu-in Temple, Kyoto, Japan, Hazy Window, on view through December 1, at ARTRO, Kyoto, Japan, Past Is Prologue, on view through February 16, 2025 at Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts, TNUA, Taipei, Taiwan. Recently in 2024, Andrew Kreps Gallery presented He Xiangyu’s third exhibition with the gallery, his solo show The Radiance of Liberty. In 2023, He’s work was the subject of an exhibition at the Sifang Art Museum, Shanghai, and in 2021 He was shortlisted for the 4th edition of the Mario Merz Prize. Other past solo exhibitions of He’s work include House of Nations, CCA, Berlin, 2022, Low-hanging Fruits, Tao Art Space, Taipei, 2022, New Directions: He Xiangyu, Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, 2015, and Cola Project, 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, Sydney, 2012, among others.
In addition, He has participated in numerous group exhibitions which include: Pictures of the Post-80s Generation —Generational Leap, now on view at TANK Shangai, China, through May 4, 2025, Namedropping, Museum of Old and New Art, Hobart, Australia, 2024, Wenn’s gut werden muss, Kunstverein Wiesen, Wiesen, Germany, 2024, Launching a New Era: Body and Language as Manifesto, Yuan Art Museum, Beijin, China, 2024, M+Sigg Collection:Another story, M+, Hong Kong, China, 2023, MVM - Infinite Cosmos, Jebum-gang Art Center, Lhasa, China, 2023, Motion is Action, 35 Years of Chinese Media Art, Art Matters, Hangzhou, China, 2023, Friends in the Arts, TANK Shangai, Shanghai, China, 2023, Looking at the Stars, G Museum, Nanjing, China, 2023, Living in the New Century: Chinese Media Arts since 1986, Ulsan Arts Museum, Ulsan, Korea, 2022, Forming Communities: Berliner Wege, KINDL, Berlin, Germany, 2022, Afterimage, MAXXI L’Aquila, L’Aquila, Italy, 2022, Persona and Parasite, White Space Beijing, Beijing, China, 2022, Drawing in the Continuous Present, The Drawing Center, New York, USA, 2022, A Chair, ZHI Art Museum, Chengdu, China, 2021, To Be the Better One—The Methodology of the New Generation: New York, New Identity, New Direction, New Life, Wind H Art Center, Beijing, China, 2021, Border Crossings: North and South Korean Art from the Sigg Collection, Kunstmuseum Bern, Switzerland, 2021, Facing the Collector, The Sigg Collection of Contemporary Art from China, Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art, Turin, 2020, Terminal 3, Centre Pompidou, Paris, 2019, Tales of Our Time (Film Program), Guggenheim Museum New York, New York, 2017, Chinese Whispers, Paul Klee Zentrum, Kunstmuseum Bern, Bern, 2016, and Fire and Forget: On Violence, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, 2015, among others. He Xiangyu has additionally participated in the 5th Ural Biennale, Yekaterinburg, 2019, Everything We Create is Not Ourselves, the 58th Venice Biennale Chinese Pavilion, Venice, 2019, the 13th Lyon Biennale, Lyon, 2015, the 10th Shanghai Biennale, Shanghai, 2014, the 5th Yokohama Triennale, Yokohama, 2014, as well as the 8th Busan Biennale, Busan, 2014. He Xiangyu was named as a finalist for the Future Generation Art Prize in 2014, and won the 10th CCAA Best Young Artist Award in 2016. His recent interdisciplinary research publication "Yellow Book" 2019 was awarded as one of “The Most Beautiful German Books in 2020”. His works have been collected by a number of public and private collections such as Asymmetry Art Foundation, London, Boros Collection, Berlin, Castello Di Rivoli, Turin, KADIST Art Foundation, Paris; San Francisco, Long Museum, Shanghai, M+ Sigg Collection, Hong Kong, New Century Art Foundation, Beijing, Rubell Family Collection, Miami, White Rabbit Collection, Sydney, and others.
Sifang Art Museum presents a solo exhibition by He Xiangyu, opening November 8, 2023 at the museum's satellite space located inside the Avenue Apartments on Tongren Road, Shanghai.
House of Nations is a short film by artist He Xiangyu, shot in Berlin in the past couple of years. The film’s protagonist, a Chinese exchange student, is seen biking through the city, gathering with fellow students, and bathing in lakes alone amid the first pandemic-related global lockdown. His seemingly trivial and uneventful daily life is intermittently disrupted by close-ups of a heavy carpet, a flickering bonfire, hands rubbing together, and ambiguous interactions in the snow. At once intimate and voyeuristic, these scenes are carefully woven into a cinematic whole from which a narrative of alienation becomes more and more palpable.
He Xiangyu’s video work Terminal 3 is included in the group show Cosmopolis #2 at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. The show focuses on contemporary ideas of societies and the issue of cultural translation.
He Xiangyu is among four artists presenting work at the 58th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia's China Pavilion. Titled ‘Re-‘, the pavilion is curated by Wu Hongliang.
