Beijing-based artist holds first solo exhibition in Shanghai

"Advent," the first solo exhibition of artist Xu Qu, is currently ongoing at the Long Museum West Bund.

The exhibition, curated by Sun Dongdong, has the same title as Xu's new large-scale installation, "Advent."

"Advent," which was created in 2023, is featured alongside multiple series of Xu's large-scale paintings and installations.

The large-scale installation, "Advent," conjures up images of an unknown extraterrestrial descending upon a gigantic spacecraft. The medium of this work is recycled components from eight discarded ATMs.

The devices are disassembled and flattened before being stacked on a platform with random shutdown displays shown on their screens.

Visitors can picture the atmosphere in a vertical view while walking on the platform. During the digital revolution of currency transactions and the financial industry, physical operating methods in bank transactions have gradually changed, and money exchange application scenarios have been simplified and updated.

In Xu's opinion, these once-perfect industrial design products foreshadow the advent of the last phase of human creation.

Xu Qu, born in 1978, received an MFA in fine arts and film from Braunschweig University of Art in Germany in 2018. The artist now resides and works in Beijing.

The "Maze" series, created between 2022 and 2023, is inspired by the question of "why humans are always fascinated by the meaning behind paintings and images." The artist visualizes paintings as existing at the crossroads of imagery and linguistic systems.

Exhibition info:

Date: Through October 22 (closed on Mondays), 10am-6pm

Venue: Long Museum West Bund

Address: 3398 Longteng Ave

龙腾大道3398号