Annual exhibition programme 2022

Aranya Art Center is a kunsthalle for contemporary art, powered by Aranya, a seaside community in Beidaihe, China. Architecture is designed by Neri&Hu. Its heavy volume, dark facade and concrete wall tiles with different textures make the exterior of the art center look like a tough rock. The spiral staircases inside the building connect the open-air atrium at the bottom with each exhibition gallery. Since its opening in May 2019, the Aranya Art Center has presented seven exhibitions, including the group exhibition Long Day and Études, as well as Anselm Reyle’s first museum exhibition in China, After Forever. Since November 2021, the director of Aranya Art Center is Damien Zhang.

Sylvie Fleury: March 6–May 29, 2022
Aranya Art Center is pleased to present the first major institutional exhibition of the renowned Swiss artist Sylvie Fleury in China. The exhibition brings together nearly thirty artworks that exemplify Fleury’s prolific and diverse artistic practice across a variety of mediums, spanning over three decades. The exhibition will be on view from March 6 to May 29, 2022.

Sylvie Fleury was born in 1961 in Geneva, where she continues to live and work. She has been the subject of important exhibitions in museums across the globe, including Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao (2021); Song Art Museum, Beijing (2019); Kunstraum Dornbirn, Austria (2019); Istituto Svizzero, Rome (2019); and Villa Stuck, Munich (2016). Fleury’s works have been acquired by prestigious institutions, such as the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Centre Pompidou, Paris; and the UBS Art Collection, Switzerland. Eternity Now, her monumental neon installation is on permanent display at the Bass Museum, Miami. In 2018, she was awarded Switzerland’s Prix Meret Oppenheim, and in 2015, she received the Société des Arts de Genève Prize.

The exhibition is curated by Fabienne Stephan, curator-at-large at Salon 94, and Damien Zhang, director of Aranya Art Center. The exhibition is supported by Pro Helvetia Shanghai, Swiss Arts Council.

Tao Hui: June–September 2022
Tao Hui traverses into the art of video and installation, drawing from personal memories, visual experiences and popular culture to weave an experimental visual narration, the focus of which is often our collective experience. Running throughout his work is a sense of misplacement vis-à-vis social identity, gender status, ethnicity and cultural crisis, prompting the audience to face their own cultural histories and living conditions.

Tao Hui was born in Yunyang, Chongqing, China in 1987 and currently lives and works in Beijing, China. Solo exhibitions include OCAT Xi’an, Xi’an, China, 2017; UCCA, Beijing, China, 2015. Selected group exhibitions include re-IMAGE-n, the 4th Vancouver Biennale, Vancouver, Canada, 2019; 11th Shanghai Biennale, PSA, Shanghai, China, 2016; Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, France, 2016. In 2015, he received the grand prize of 19th Contemporary Art Festival Sesc Videobrasil and won the special award of Contemporary Art Archive from Art Sanya & Huayu Youth Award.

Gabriel Kuri: September 2022–February 2023
Gabriel Kuri’s practice employs the use of the everyday. Through the weaving of forms forged and intervened by his hand, along with found or purchased objects, Kuri investigates rational structures of value, function and exchange. Often linked to numerical categorisation, both in economic and hierarchical structures, Kuri filters and extracts visual and linguistic value through a process of physical construction and conceptual selection, with the objective of understanding the world at present.

Gabriel Kuri was born in 1970 in Mexico City and currently lives and works in Brussels, Belgium. Recent solo exhibitions include sorted, resorted, WIELS, Brussels (2019); with personal thanks to their contractual thingness, Aspen Art Museum, Aspen (2014); Bergen Kunsthall, Bergen (2012); Before Contingency After the Fact, South London Gallery, London (2011); nobody needs to know the price of your saab, The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (2011); join the dots and make a point, Kunstverein Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany (2010). 

Media contact
Liangjiao Gao, gaoliangjiao [​at​] aranya.cc / T +86 138 1143 1757

Aranya Art Center
9:30am–5pm, closed on Tuesdays
Aranya Gold Coast Community, Beidaihe New Area, Hebei Province, China.
T +86 335 782 5290