Yue Xu
Artist statement:
I am a multimedia artist making sculptures, inflatable, drawings, and artist’s books. My work focuses on the serendipitous and absurd surprises that occur in overlooked moments of the habitual surroundings of daily life.
My works are spatial analogies made from metaphors of non-continuous space, like fragments of memory. My materials are often modular and mobile. They can be disassembled, reassembled, and easily moved around; temporary spaces transform these materials from a relatively unstable to stable status. I also manipulate industrial and found objects in order to draw attention to the forces—invisible or taken for granted—that structure our everyday lives. This transitory act of constructing temporary stability parallels the experience of moving and living across different borders.
Recently, my work focuses on the airflow of modern architecture. Airflow within a complex structure of ductwork allows us to breathe in towering buildings and lower-level basements. The ducts in buildings constantly undergo long-term repair— adding more ventilation outlets, changing the direction of air. The core structure and reconfiguration of the ventilation is a metaphor for a systematic mechanism. Inherently invasive soft violence and subtle invisible occupation of space unassumingly manifest as systems and objects we tend to take for granted, such as interior airflow. I seek to identify these in order to de-weaponize them; I bring a playful element to the never-ending battle of repair and call attention to similarity and universality despite the different scales of power structures.
CV
Education
2018 BFA, Bookbinding Art, Printmaking Department, Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts (GAFA), Guangzhou, China
2021 MFA, Sculpture Department, the School of Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC)
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2022 Siege, Base space, Chicago, IL
2018 Re-, the Corner space, Guangzhou, China
Selected Two-Person Exhibitions
2021 Hostile Architecture Jasmine Yeh and Yue Xu, Curated by Katie Rauth, Chicago Art Department, Chicago, IL
Selected Group Exhibitions
2023 Winter Survival, Curated by Yue Xu, featuring Fengze Yang, Nanxi Jin, Linhan Zhang, Sam Oh, Yuhsin Wu, and Yumi Fukuta, The Plan, Chicago, IL
2023 Break out!, Asian Female Artists Annual Art Exhibition, Avant-garde Art Project
2023 Another New Year, 6018|North, Chicago, IL
2023 Ullrpaaaiiillllgggrrrrrhrhekoko group show, by Sungho Bae, Jess Bass, Yumi Fukuda, Rob Sohmer, Jasmine Yeh, and Yue Xu, The Plan, Chicago, IL
2022 Springboard, Curated by Alberto Aguilar, MAYFIELD, Chicago, IL
2021 (dis)Locate, Curator by Jonas Mueller Ahlheim, I-Chien Chen, Base space, Chicago, IL
2021 Garage sale 2.0, Curator by Andy Hunt, Jess Bass, Rob Sohmer, Terrain Biennial, Oliva gallery, Chicago, IL
2021 Intertwined, Mana Contemporary, Chicago, IL
2020 Unbinding Self, 062 Space, Chicago, IL
2020 In conversation with DJ Malinowski, Black widow remote residency, Chicago, IL
2020 Self-portraits that actually aren’t portraits at all, but are still portraits of ourselves nonetheless, Remote exhibition, Perennial Space, Chicago, IL
2020 AMPHIBIOUS (group effort!), Comfort station, Logan Square, Chicago, IL
2018 Selling My Friends, 23 Art Festival, Foshan, China
2018 GAFA BFA GRADUATED SHOW, Guangdong Art Museum, Guangzhou, China
2017 Eating at The Table We Set, U&M Space, Guangzhou, China
2016 Dragon in the Field, Yuan Museum, Conghua, Guangzhou, China
Publications and lectures
2023 Tethered to Memory: The storytelling in Yue Xu’s artwork, by Gabriel Chalfin-Piney, Ruckus Journal
2022 Soapbox present: Yue Xu & Jasmine Huaimin Yeh, Artist Talk, Comfort station, Chicago, IL
2022 The Corner Cabinet Project - An Anthropologist's View of Rural Revitalization, ART.China
2020 The Quarantine Times - 06/04/20
2021 Intentional Remnants: Collecting, Reframing, Assembling with Keynote Jessica Vaughn, Chicago Architecture Biennial Symposium, Remote Chicago, IL
2018 Re-, Self-Published
2017 Longyan Project - Dragon in the Field, Issue #01, Yuan Museum