Arthub Favorite: Week 144
a’a’a’jiao：an ID
Artist：AAAJIAO/Xu Wenkai
Duration: 2019 April 27 – July 14
Venue：Gallery 6/7, F3, HOW Art Museum (Shanghai), No 1, Lane 2277 Zuchongzhi Rd., Shanghai 201203, China
Organizer：HOW Art Museum
HOW Art Museum (Shanghai) will be hosting a solo exhibition of aaajiao/Xu Wenkai “aaajiao：an ID” from April 27, 2019 until July 14, 2019. This show is part of HOW NOW exhibition series featuring young Chinese artists.
In 1989, the world wide web was created at the hands of the English scientist Tim Berners-Lee. aaajiao (Xu Wenkai) is part of the generation who grow up within this interconnected network and experienced the process of technological digitalization firsthand. Yet, thirty years later people are still incapable of summing up in one sentence all the changes that the internet has brought.
aaajiao holds the perspective that, with the plethora of possibilities and immense satisfaction technology has brought with it a host of new dilemmas and crises: individual existence is increasingly defined on-line and in the form of numbers, the tightening of the inter-net makes the extensiveness of connectedness more and more immediate, causing the notions of “freedom” and “independence” to become abstract concepts outside the range of perception.
The attainment and ascendance of an unfathomable amount of data paired with the unprecedented penetration of preeminence via technology make governance evermore convenient. People are increasingly faced with the danger of individual alienation by becoming what Edward O. Wilson described as “Eusocial Organisms”. If art represents the state of people’s minds, then its form is in the process of being profoundly altered by technology.
Faced with the given predicament, if artists hope to play any sort of role in all of this, then they must first posit their practices at the core of the technological mechanism. Due to aaajiao’s background, he welcomes and fully embraces new technology and thought brought about by this revolution; exploring the potential emergency exit for the psychological disposition of human beings through reflecting on technology while proposing a new way of thinking and aesthetics in the form of artworks.
The exhibition has received support from AIKE Gallery and Yang Gallery.
About artist
Active online as a media artist, blogger, activist and programmer, aaajiao is the virtual persona of Xu Wenkai, a Shanghai/Berlin-based artist. Born in 1984 — the title of George Orwell’s classic allegorical novel, in one of China’s oldest cities, Xi’an, aaajiao’s art and works are marked by a strong dystopian awareness and reflection on the geist of the literati. Many of his works are devoted to exploring cultural phenomena and political strategies under the influence of new technologies and media, spanning from writing on social media and data processing, to new aesthetic spectacles under the network and mobile orientated media. aaajiao’s recent projects extend his practice to various disciplines (among them, architecture, topography, and design) to capture the pulse of the young generation consuming cyber technology and living in social media.
aaajiao’s work has been featured in numerous exhibitions around the world, upcoming and recent shows include “Art in the Age of the Internet, 1989 to Today”, The Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, Boston (2018); “unREAL”, Haus der elektronischen Künste, Basel (2017); “Shanghai Project Part II”, Shanghai (2017); “Temporal Turn: Art and Speculation in Contemporary Asia”, Spencer Museum of Art, Kansas (2016); “Take Me (I’m Yours)” (curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, Jens Hoffmann and Kelly Taxter), Jewish Museum, New York (2016); “Overpop”, Yuz Museum, Shanghai (2016); “Hack Space” (curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist and Amira Gad), K11 Art Foundation Pop-up Space, Hong Kong and chi K11 art museum, Shanghai (2016); “Globale: Global Control and Censorship”, ZKM | Centre for Art and Media, Karlsruhe (2015); “Thingworld International Triennial of New Media Art”, The National Art Museum of China, Beijing (2014); and Transmediale, Berlin (2010). His solo exhibitions include: “Remnants of an Electronic Past”, Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art, Manchester (2016); OCAT Contemporary Art Terminal Xi’an, Xi’an (2016), among others.
He was awarded the Art Sanya Awards in 2014 Jury Prize and was nominated for the first edition of OCAT-Pierre Huber Art Prize in 2014.
aaajiao lives and works in Shanghai and Berlin.