Artist Talk with Zishi Han & Wei Yang at Asia Art Archive in America

Please join Frankfurt-based artists Zishi Han and Wei Yang for a joint artist talk on their recent independent work and ongoing collaboration. This talk will introduce and explore ideas that inform their upcoming performances at SculptureCenter. The following program is presented in conjunction with .

Opening March 13, 2025 at SculptureCenter, Han and Yang will present 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 SculptureCenter. SculptureCenter and AAAinA are co-presenting public programming in AAAinA’s Brooklyn Heights reading room that expands on the artists' In Practice commission and their ongoing collaboration.

Performances at SculptureCenter follow on March 13, 14, 15, 20, 21, and 22. Links to performance and event pages are forthcoming.

Participant bios

Zishi Han (b. Beijing, lives and works in Frankfurt am Main) probes masochistic attachment to power structures through installation, sculpture, video and drawing. Drawn to forms that hold and let through, he constructs possessed and perverted apparatuses to dismantle previous relations and incubate unexplored desires.

Wei Yang (b. Liuzhou, lives and works in Frankfurt am Main) explores human beings as a geographic subject in diasporic spaces. He layers collective memories to create hybrid images through myths, history and personal landscapes, which serve as sites of resistance against grand narratives and archival neglect.

Their project Hairpin Beneath has been exhibited at Perdu, Amsterdam (2025); Tropez, Berlin (2024); Memphis, Linz (2024); Pols, Valencia (2024); Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen (2024); West Den Haag, The Hague (2024); Delfina Foundation, London (2023); and Pickle Bar, Berlin (2023).

leads the conversation on contemporary art by supporting artistic innovation and independent thought highlighting sculpture's specific potential to change the way we engage with the world. Positioning artists' work in larger cultural, historical, and aesthetic contexts, SculptureCenter discerns and interprets emerging ideas. Founded by artists in 1928, SculptureCenter provides an international forum that connects artists and audiences by presenting exhibitions, commissioning new work, and generating scholarship.

Light refreshments will be provided.

AAAinA’s general programming and operations are funded in part by the New York State Council on the Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in Partnership with the City Council, the Vilcek Foundation, and other foundations and individuals.

Host or Publisher Asia Art Archive in America