At SculptureCenter, Zishi Han and Wei Yang will develop a new phase of their ongoing collaborative research project into historical Chinese homoerotic literature, intertwining multiple narratives that explore queer existences in China and of Chinese diaspora. Emerging from their shared interests in the power dynamics inherent in desire and intimacy, the artists’ point of departure is their own translation of the late Ming dynasty anthology of homoerotic stories 弁而釵 (Biàn ér chāi) by the pseudonymous "The Moon-Heart Master of the Drunken West Lake”, the title of which suggests the action of a man removing his ceremonial headgear and donning a woman's hairpin. Han and Yang’s performance-and-video works loosely interpret the text’s storylines to dwell amidst the blurry boundary between the fictional and the biographical, while drawing on a variety of Chinese historical and contemporary cultural practices, such as poetry, Chinese Opera, literati landscape painting, Danmei literature, C-pop and reality TV shows.
Zishi Han and Wei Yang’s time in New York City is organized in partnership with Asia Art Archive in America (AAAinA). In February and March 2024, SculptureCenter and AAAinA will co-present public programming off-site in AAAinA’s Brooklyn Heights reading room that expands on the artists' In Practice commission and their ongoing collaboration.
Asia Art Archive in America (AAAinA), founded in 2009, is an independently established and operated U.S. 501(c)3, and the first overseas hub of Asia Art Archive (AAA) in Hong Kong. AAAinA’s mission is to collect, preserve, and make accessible information on contemporary art from and of Asia, in order to facilitate public understanding and specialized research to instigate dialogue and critical thinking, and to raise awareness of and support for the activities of AAA globally. To achieve this goal, AAAinA maintains a reading room in Brooklyn, New York which is open to the public free of charge, and comprises over 5,000 monographs, exhibition catalogs, reference books, periodicals, and audio-visual materials about contemporary art related to Asia. AAAinA also organizes a regular program of talks, screenings, workshops, participatory projects, exhibitions, residencies, and panels with artists, curators, critics, and scholars in the field.
