XI NIU
01 / A different geography
THE SILK ROAD
IS NOT A LINE.
It is a moving field of encounters.
A palimpsest of routes, voices, materials and memories—always in motion.
02 / The project
A map made
of relations.
XI NIU challenges the perception of the empire–state–court system as the predominant model of cultural production. Instead, it takes the historical Silk Road as a palimpsest, addressing international trade networks which—despite their mercurial and often elusive nature—have long constituted an alternative infrastructure for the circulation of artistic resources.
These routes have shaped cultural identities, facilitated diplomatic exchange, and sustained forms of cultural production across centuries.
03 / Seven artists & artist duos
OUTWARD,
LOOKING
IN.
For artists in China in particular, the Silk Road has inspired cross-cultural thinking across ecological, spiritual, and philosophical dimensions, fostering outward-looking practices that continue to expand the psychological, terrestrial, and literary imagination of Chinese identity.
Bringing together seven artists and artist duos, the exhibition explores themes of nomadism, exile, and travel, foregrounding encounters between two or more cultures within each work.
From one world
to another
The artists
IN SEARCH OF
NEW ROUTES.
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Cao Minghao & Chen Jianjun 曹明浩 & 陈建军Cao Minghao & Chen Jianjun曹明浩 & 陈建军
Artists and transdisciplinary researchers whose practice is research-driven and process-oriented, built on reciprocal collaboration with their partners. Shown at documenta fifteen, the 13th Shanghai Biennale and Centre Pompidou.
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Hao Liang 郝量Hao Liang郝量
Works in ink and colour on silk, folding the classical Chinese painting tradition into contemporary time. His work has been shown at the Centre Pompidou, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the 57th Venice Biennale.
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Han Mengyun 韩梦云Han Mengyun韩梦云
Multidisciplinary artist, poet and mother. Her work decolonizes Eurasian cultural hybridizations, spanning religion, philosophy, mythology, trade and bookmaking, with a recent focus on Indian and Persian manuscripts and woodblock printing.
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Xie Fan 谢帆Xie Fan谢帆
Re-examines the material essence of painting and the way images interact with light, surface and time. Having begun with oil on silk, he now fires mineral pigments and oxides onto raw clay and terracotta, letting the kiln’s chemical transformations become part of the work.
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Xie Nanxing 谢南星Xie Nanxing谢南星
Navigates the unstable boundary between abstraction and figuration. He treats painting as a temporal process unfolding through fragmentation and rhythmic brushwork, where repetition works as variation rather than duplication.
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Zhao Gang 赵刚Zhao Gang赵刚
Delves into the fluidity of identity, the clash of cultures and the interplay of fragmented histories. At eighteen the youngest member of the avant-garde ‘Star Group’. His audacious brushwork stands as a defiant answer to the prevailing trend of artistic refinement.
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Zhou Yilun 周轶伦Zhou Yilun周轶伦
Remakes everyday objects that seem to have become superfluous—from internet pictures to decorative gadgets and furniture. A lighthearted parody of symbols and images that keeps testing the potency of the medium itself.
Select an artist to open their works
Installation
RHINOCEROS
GALLERY
Press
PRESS RELEASE
04 / Continuity
LIQUID
BOUNDARIES.
Folding memories from multiple spatial temporalities into a single exhibition space, XI NIU reflects on the enduring legacy of the Silk Road, the coexistence of multiplicity, and the transcendence of temporal boundaries.
XI NIU
A rhinoceros project
Rome