Jes Fan

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Jes Fan, *Bivalve II,* 2023. Aqua resin, glass, pigments and metal. 135.3 x 88.9 x 34.9 cm.

Left: *Wounding*, 2022. Middle: *Fragrant Harbor*, 2022. Right: *Apparatus*, 2022.

Installation view, The 59th La Biennale di Venezia 2022: ‘The Milk of Dreams’

Jes Fan, *Fragrant Harbour*, 2022. Glass, aqua resin, metal, wood, silicone, 190 x 114 x 79 cm.

Installation view of *Network (for Dispersal)*, 2021, at Liquid Ground, UCCA Dune, 2022
Photography by Sun Shi
Courtesy UCCA Center for Contemporary Art

Installation view from ‘The Stomach and the Port,’ Liverpool Biennial, 2021

Image courtesy of the artist and Liverpool Biennial 2021
Photo: Stuart Whipps

Installation view from 22nd Biennale of Sydney: NIRIN

Image courtesy of the artist and 22nd Biennale of Sydney: NIRIN, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia

Jes Fan (b. Scarborough, Canada) lives and works in Hong Kong and Brooklyn, USA. Fan originally trained in glass making, but has expanded his practice to encompass diverse mediums and approaches. From videos to sculptures, his trans-disciplinary practice speculates on the intersection of biology and identity in relation to the materiality of the gendered and racialised body. Fan is the recipient of various fellowships and residencies, including the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant (2022), Joan Mitchell Painters and Sculptors Grant (2017), as well as the Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship (2019-2020). Recent exhibitions include MIT List Visual Arts Center, UCCA Dune (2022); Kunsthall Trondheim (2021); X Museum (2020); Rockbund Art Museum, China (2019); Hayward Gallery, UK (2019); Empty Gallery, Hong Kong (2018); and Museum of Arts and Design, USA (2017). Fan has also participated in numerous artist residencies with institutions including the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Recess Art, Smack Mellon and Pioneer Works. He also participated in the Venice Biennale (2022), New Museum Triennial (2021), Liverpool Biennale (2021), Sydney Biennale (2020), Socrates Annual (2019). In 2023, he presented a second solo show with Empty Gallery, Sites of Wounding: Part 1.

He is jointly represented by Empty Gallery and Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York.

Current:
Sites of Wounding: Chapter 1, Empty Gallery
through June 24, 2023

More than Human, Blanc Art Space A1, Beijing
through July 23, 2023

X PINK 101, X Museum, Beijing
through August 6, 2023

Industrial Rhapsody, Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung, Munich
through November 24, 2023

Upcoming:
Sigg Prize 2023 exhibition, M+ Museum

Recent Press:
Ophelia Lai, “Flesh of My Flesh“, Spike

Jes Fan_Bio CV
DOWNLOAD pdf (182 KB)

Jes Fan press archive
DOWNLOAD pdf (28.1 MB)


2023-05-30	Tishan Hsu in Artforum China
	Tishan Hsu’s conversation with the independent curator Miao Zijin for Artforum China is now live. Read more …
2023-05-28	Jes Fan in X PINK 101, X Museum
	X Museum is pleased to present its inaugural exhibition ‘X PINK 101’ in its new location in Beijing, from May 28 to August 6, 2023. Centred around the colour pink, the exhibition brings together 49 works from the museum collection in its newly restored historic building, marking a fresh chapter of the museum’s inspiring programs. Jes Fan’s Function Begets Form (2018) is on view.
2023-05-27	Jes Fan in More than Human, Blanc Art Space
	More Than Human is curated and produced by DOSSIER and in collaboration with, and supported by, EUNIC (European Union National Institutes of Culture), Blanc Art Group, Choi Centre – Cloud House and other local and international partners. More Than Human will be on view at Blance Art Space A1 from 27 May to 23 July 2023. “In More Than Human, we challenge the very idea of “humans” itself. We begin by asking who actually is a human. But in trying to figure out the “who,” we cannot neglect the “how” — the process of becoming (non-)human. How, for instance, do humans order the world? And how are the problems facing the world the result of the humanist norms and structures that order our world today? Most importantly, we look at how a post-anthropocentric world would look like — one where human beings do not reign supreme and acknowledge their interdependency and entanglements with other species.” Participating artists include: Andrew Thomas Huang, Anna Raimondo, Artor Jesus Inkerö, Anna-Sophie Berger, Black Birds Creative Co., Dai Chenlian, Die Ge, ErGao, François Chaignaud, Hu Wei, Jes Fan, Jake Elwes, Konstantin Zhukov, Lilibeth Cuenca Rasmussens, Martina Menegon, Melanie Bonajo , Miriam Cahn, Otay:onii, Prinz Gholam, Tao Hui, Zheng Bo.
2023-05-23	Tishan Hsu in Hardcore, Sadie Coles HQ
	Opening in May 2023, Hardcore is a group exhibition including 18 artists’ whose works centre on the power dynamics of sex, the diverse nature of intimacy, and our reaction to it. The era of cancel culture has produced a timidly lower volume for discussions around difficult and more nuanced examinations of sexuality, and the works in this show unapologetically test the parameters of the human experience, challenge social convention, and create space for psychological exploration. These artists provoke reaction, thought and important discussion around essential human questions: Darja Bajagić, Monica Bonvicini, Miriam Cahn, Elaine Cameron-Weir, KING COBRA (documented as Doreen Lynette Garner), Bob Flanagan and Sheree Rose, Maryam Hoseini, Tishan Hsu, Stanislava Kovalcikova, Bruce LaBruce, Tayeba Begum Lipi, Monica Majoli, Tiona Nekkia McClodden, Carolee Schneemann, Joan Semmel, Cindy Sherman and Andra Ursuţa. Hardcore is curated by Sadie Coles and John O’Doherty. The exhibition runs from 25 May through August 5, 2023. Read more …
2023-05-23	James T. Hong in The New Survivors, Three Shadows Photography Centre
	Curated by Wang Shuman, The New Survivors opened on May 20 at Three Shadows Photography Centre. Participating artists include: Harun Farocki, James T. Hong, Jazmin Lopez, Meiro Koizumi, Ana Mendieta, Nguyen Trinh Thi, Moe Satt and Tang Chao. The exhibition will be on view through July 2 and features James T. Hong’s Three Arguments About the Opium War (2015).
2023-05-09	Cici Wu in Daily Pictures, Each Modern Taipei
	Opening May 10th: “Each Modern is pleased to present Daily Pictures, a group exhibition of new and earlier work by Kevin Weil, Cici Wu, Max Guy, Margaret Lee, Mari Eastman, Arnold J. Kemp, Gaylen Gerber, Peter Fischli David Weiss and David Diao, curated by Alex Jen. Spanning generations, these nine artists apprehend the world in curious and humble ways, often via meticulous inquiry into their own materials and processes.” Read more …
2023-04-20	Jes Fan in Spike Art Magazine
	Ophelia Lai has reviewed Jes Fan’s Sites of Wounding: Chapter 1 for Spike Magazine’s Spring 2023 issue #75: “Sculpting in nacre-like glass, the ashes of shells, and casts from his own body, Jes Fan looks to a pearl oyster for guidance on thwarting and absorbing foreign power in Hong Kong. Across the road from Empty Gallery, at the Aberdeen waterfront, fishing boats unload their catches every morning at a local seafood market. This briny atmosphere is vividly conjured within the gallery at Jes Fan’s (*1990) latest solo exhibition, “Sites of Wounding: Chapter 1,” which takes pearl farming as a starting point for the artist’s expanding inquiry into extractive industries.” Read more …
2023-04-14	Raha Raissnia in Texte Zur Kunst
	Diana d’Arenberg has reviewed Raha Raissnia’s Nour for Texte Zur Kunst online: “Iranian-born New York–based artist Raha Raissnia’s first solo exhibition in East Asia, staged at Empty Gallery in Hong Kong, sees visitors step into a theatrical pitch-black gallery space in a high-rise industrial building. Eyes and mind are deprived of visual clutter and distraction, left to focus instead on the softly lit artworks that take center stage in the gallery (the only illuminated objects in the entire space).” Read more …
2023-04-11	Cici Wu in Artforum CN
	Qu Chang has named Cici Wu’s Tsaiyun (Rosy-Cloud) Bridge at Hordaland Kunstsenter as a Critic’s Pick in Artforum China. Read more …
2023-03-26	Tishan Hsu in Artnet News
	Louise Benson in Artnet News: ‘Tishan Hsu’s Art Preceded Internet Aesthetics by Decades. Now, His Prescient Work Is Finally Getting Its Due. A digitally native generation has become captivated by the New York artist, who is in his 70s.’ “Tishan Hsu is an artist in search of his own vision of the future. His creative journey has unfolded over almost five decades as Hsu has refined and honed his visceral interrogation of the collapse between human and machine. Yet, following a handful of solo shows staged in New York during the 1980s, including one with famed dealer Leo Castelli, for over 30 years Hsu rarely exhibited his work publicly at all. Instead, he chose to privately focus on his relentless quest to capture a new kind of embodied technology that had not yet come into being.” Read more …