The Massive Migration
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was born in 1982 in Shanghai, working and living in Shanghai. He works in the fields of painting, comics and sculpture. Xiao Longhua's work focuses on exploring the interactions and possibilities of new creations between materials based on their raw shapes, textures, colours and their nature, and seizing upon the impromptu relations and narrativity through them.
Xiao Longhua has exhibited in many prestigious museums and galleris worldwide, including Centre National d'art et de Culture Georges Pompidou in Paris (France), Kumamoto Contemporary Art Museum (Japan), La Rada – Space for Contemporary Art in Locarno (Switzerland), Bauhaus Museum in Dessau (Germany), Power Station of Art in Shanghai (China) and more.
Opening
23th August 17:00
The Shanghai-based artist Xiao Longhua started to compile some of his experimental works into this series as early as 2016. Later, he gave the series the title The Massive Migration, which includes various paintings and sculptures. The objects he often used, such as tools, home appliances, instruments, and parts, were all retired from their original purposes but remained "alive" in a certain momentary stillness, somewhere in a corner or buried in a pile. The artist emancipated them from their doomed destiny and provided them with new appearances and identities; moreover, he set them on a migrant journey.
By escaping from the confines of time and space, one can experience the past as the future and vice versa. Xiao Longhua demonstrated the possibilities and the livelihood before, after, and during the massive migration from the confines of our imagination.
"Nothing is extinct; we just stop being able to imagine its existence." — Markus Lüpertz
During the opening, Xiao Longhua will launch his new book Kua Fu Chasing the Sun, a multi-narrative puzzle.
Kua Fu Chasing the Sun is an ancient mythological story. In modern society, preserving memories through oral storytelling has virtually disappeared. This is Xiao Longhua’s attempt to reshape this story passed down through generations, blending his own understanding and uncovering narrative fragments from the scattered information concealed in various sources. Departing from a text by Xiao Yong, the mastermind behind POSTPOST Space in Beijing and 3standardstoppage, Xiao Longhua presents a new form of memory medium—a digital stele—awaiting decipherment and interpretation by future generations.
This is the third time Xiao Longhua has collaborated with the book design studio 1 and Half Atelier within the framework of the art publication project After Intermission. The studio was founded in 2016 by bookbinder Zhong Yu and designer Bai Kui. Previously, together with the studio, Xiao Longhua also successfully published a book homonymous with this exhibition and the renowned The Blind Men and the Elephant.
