Vitalisms is an exhibition-as-experiment initiating a long-term research and education project on the "historicity" and "value" of contemporary painting in China. We begin our research by gathering a group of artists, born in the 1980s and 90s in China and mostly educated in Chinese art academies, and by focusing on figurative paintings made in the past five years (i.e., since 2020). We experiment with their presentation in a shared space and time, to ask:

How are they situated in history? What could they tell us about the time and place in which they were made? Could we anticipate their historicization as documents of personal and/or collective memory in the future? In what ways could they become a counter-hegemonic archive?

The title of this exhibition, Vitalisms, derives from art critic and historian Isabelle Graw’s theory of painting’s particularity not as a medium, but rather as a type of sign production that is experienced as deeply visceral and highly personalized. A painting’s pictorial signs point first to their material and corporeal form, which then can be read as traces of activity and felt as “haptic events” on their surface – and it is from here which “vitalistic fantasies” emerge. Throughout painting’s history, various vitalistic fantasies have been projected onto the painting as a material object: an image of liveliness, an agent with divine power to bring dead matter to life, an artifact of the artist’s life and presence, and a living subject itself. 

Could we possibly extend these vitalistic fantasies to think further of paintings as a reflecting subject – a knowing and thinking agent capable of effecting change in our modes of understanding the world? Could painting, when made and understood as socially and historically contingent, also act upon the world itself?

With the launch of Vitalisms, when we ask about the historicity of painting, we are not asking about the historical accuracy of a painting in terms of what it depicts, i.e., “what really happened?” as an ontological question. The accuracy of history is one that can never be answered as we cannot directly observe the past. We can only indirectly observe the effects of the past, including paintings as cultural artifacts.  Endowed with life, whether projected upon it as fantasy or immanent to its material being, paintings speak to us and act upon the world. Paintings represent and make shifts in our modes of understanding the world. Our question is an epistemological one, “how do we know what really happened?” 

Vitalisms is accompanied by related events, including:

OPENING RECEPTION

• Thursday, 20 March, 16:00–19:00

SCREENING
Jilu Camp: Workers’ New Villages 

• Saturday, 29 March, 13:00–17:30

Organized by Jilu Commune first as a three-month workshop series, the screening of “Jilu Camp: Worker’s New Villages” features nine local filmmakers who developed short documentaries exploring these unique residential complexes built to house industrial workers in Shanghai during the mid-20th century. Once vibrant symbols of socialist urban planning and collective living, these neighborhoods and communities now face an uncertain future. How do these vanishing spaces shape our subconscious understanding of history and belonging? 

CONVERSATIONS
Form & Content: How Do We Remember Painting(s)?

• Saturdays, 12, 19, 26 April, 17, 24, 31 May, 7 June, 15:30
  

  For specific schedule with artists, please check the event webpage.

No theory of painting is possible without conversation with artists. Vitalisms is an exhibition-as-experiment that initiates discussions with artists about their paintings and to ask: How are they situated in history? Could we anticipate their historicization as documents of personal and/or collective memory in the future? Join us for this opportunity to learn about how artists think, talk, and feel about painting.

TALK
Folk Tune Extraction: A Brief Look at Painting as Intellectual Histories of Modern China

• Saturday, 14 June, 14:00–16:00

Critic and curator Zian Chen explores the enduring practice of Chinese artists using painterly methods to conduct research. Drawing on works by socialist-era painters, he outlines how their practice, rooted in social science and land reform, helped forge a unique Chinese aesthetic and a canon that appropriated marginal cultural narratives. Exploring their legacy through incisive critiques of the Chinese gaze, a potential pathway emerges toward a new horizon for painting as critical research.

All events are FREE and OPEN to the public.

For further details and to register for events, please visit the event pages under Related programs below.

The exhibition Vitalisms and related events are presented as the second season of the ICA's artistic research program Lightless Fires (2024–26), exploring fermentation as a figure and technique of collective memory, autonomous archiving, and writing history. 

Vitalisms is organized by Michelle Yeonho Hyun with BAO Yang, with additional support by ZHANG Yiying and PENG Linru.  Special thanks to JIANG Tianze, Kris Wang, and Steven & Mae Taylor for their generosity, as well as Antenna Space, Capsule, Gene Gallery, LINSEED, Lisson Gallery, and Nan Ke Gallery for their support.  We are indebted to our partners, peers, and interlocutors: Zian Chen, GU Ling, Yachen Tsai & Yang Yang/Jilu Commune, and WANG Xiaofu. Design by LIU Anqi.

Our deepest gratitude belongs to the artists for sharing their knowledge, work, and time with us, extending our curiosity and creating more questions.

This season is dedicated to the memory of our collaborator of five years, XU Dong.