Curator：

Lu Mingjun

 

Exhibition period：2023.3.30-2023.9.19

 

Participating artists：(in alphabetical order by surname)

Farah Atassi, Oliver Beer, Chen Xiaoyun, Cui Jie, Gong Jian, Andrew Pierre Hart, Hu Jiayi, Hu Yinping, Ji Xin, Christine Sun Kim, Li Qing, Lin Yilin, Liu Wei, Lu Lei, Julian Opie, Daniel Richter, Su Yuxin, Tao Hui, Tom Wesselmann, Wang Jianwei, Wang Qiang, Wang Yi, Xiao Jiang, Xu Zhen, Yang Fudong, YOYO, Yang Zhenzhong, Zhao Gang, Zhao Yu, Zheng Yuan

 

PREFACE

 

The Ruijin Building, located at the Fuxing intersection of Maoming South Road in the city centre of Shanghai, was designed and built in 1986 by Sumitomo Mitsui Construction Co. Ltd. Over more than twenty years, as one of the most iconic buildings in the city, it has not only witnessed and recorded the memories and warmth of generations of Shanghai people during the process of globalization, but also carried their infinite hope and imagination for this rising megalopolis. In 2022, ASE Foundation takes up residence in the building, aiming to revisit the historical process of this megalopolis in the name of art, in order to stimulate our perception and reflection on the building, the city, and globalization itself.

 

"UPSTAIRS CITIES" is the second exhibition held by ASE Foundation, as the succession of last year's opening exhibition "STAGE/TIME", which is also based on the Foundation’s collection. 31 artists of different ages from home and abroad participated in the exhibition, with 35 works covering a variety of media including painting, installation, video, sculpture, and photography.

 

ASE Foundation is located on the 7th floor of the south side of the Ruijin Building, which is the most straightforward explanation of its theme, "UPSTAIRS CITIES". However, the exhibition intends to express more. The four sections, "The First Intellectual", "The Second City of Life", "The Third Form", and "The Fourth Light", form the thread of the exhibition, which focuses on issues such as people and cities, architecture and cities, cities and megalopolises, cities and their destiny. Each section, like the theme "UPSTAIRS CITIES", is cast over a slightly hallucinatory or surreal charm, but at the same time, they are also a mirror image of the protean reality, or even the reality itself. Thus, the exhibition is not a paradise in the midst of a downtown, but rather a warning of what is at stake, a temporary refuge: "How to avoid the fate of our world and civilization from falling into destruction."