K11 Art Foundation (KAF) and the New Museum have announced their first major collaboration in China with the group show “After us,” opening at the K11 Art Museum in Shanghai on March 17.
The exhibition features a stellar list of artists working in digital media, and focuses thematically on our online avatars, exploring the relationship between adopted online personas and our experiences offline, with works by artists such as Jon Rafman, Cécile B. Evans, Li Liao, Katja Novitskova, Ian Cheng, Chen Zhou, Takeshi Murata, and Lin Ke, among others.
The New Museum’s Lauren Cornell, assisted by Baoyang Chen, curated the exhibition.
“’After us’ sparks new dialogues between Chinese and international artists and brings together experimental and cutting-edge artists from across the world in new and illuminating ways,” explains Adrian Cheng, founder and honorary chairman of K11 Foundation.
The investigation into the worlds of digital art, gaming, avatars, combined with sculptural and installation works seeks to bridge the gap between our activities on WhatsApp, Webchat, and Minecraft, for example, with how we experience our everyday lives in the physical world.
“The New Museum is pleased to continue its partnership with the K11 Art Foundation this spring following the successful Museum residency and exhibition with artist Cheng Ran in New York in 2016,” New Museum director Massimiliano Gioni said in a statement.
“The New Museum has a history of championing artists working at the intersection of art and technology and we are thrilled that Cornell’s expertise in this area can expand KAF’s mission to bring new, boundary-pushing artists to Shanghai,” he added.
This exhibition is part of an ongoing partnership between K11 and the New Museum, which has also established an incubator for emerging Chinese artists in New York.