.COM/.CN

Exhibition Dates: 2017.11.09 – 2018.01.03

Exhibition Venue: Gallery 1 & 2, chi K11 art museum, K11 Art Mall, 300 Huaihai Road Central, Huangpu District, Shanghai

Artists: Darren Bader, Cao Fei, DIS, Aleksandra Domanovic, Greg Edwards, Lauren Owens, Li Ming, Liang Wei, Lin Ke, Liu Shiyuan, Miao Ying, Oliver Payne, Sondra Perry, Wang Xin, Anicka Yi

Curators: Klaus Biesenbach and Peter Eleey

“.com/.cn” showcases artistic practices in China and the West that respond to, or are affected by, our digital ecosystem. Frequently described as a “network” or a “cloud,” this system is often assumed to be universal, unencumbered by territory, language, law, or national culture. However, distinct regional internets have developed under varying forms of state control, each conditioning different social behaviours, economies, and modes of thought. These variations are particularly evident in comparing artistic responses to the available internets of China and the West, and their respective political and economic systems.

Some of the works selected for .com/.cn examine the Chinese digital ecosystem, its permeability to Western content, and the cultural aspirations it both encourages and limits. Others reflect artists’ use of regional platforms for research and communication – for example Google, Facebook, Weibo, and WeChat – and their influence.

Paintings in the exhibition propose new abstract spaces that combine historical Chinese and Western vocabularies with contemporary pictorial schematic devices. Prosthetics and avatars supplement and replace the body. Real geographies are set against technological representations and imaginary terrains, evoking the challenges facing the liberal ideals of globalization in an age of nationalist retrenchment.