Upon entering the exhibition, you will encounter familiar artworks that you might recall from our earlier exhibitions. This collection features a range of unsold artworks. Additionally, an AI podcast discussing the context of the show, generated based on this press release, will be playing throughout the gallery.

In today’s speculative art market, characterized by exaggeration and market manipulation, DE SARTHE is marking its first show of the year with a month-long deliberate showcase of unsold works from past exhibitions. A curatorial concept that goes against the grain of common market-driven practices, the exhibition intends to spark critical discussions about market dynamics, reset the manipulated perceptions of what is considered value in art, and reemphasize the importance of fostering a healthy and sustainable art world ecosystem.

But just as history has previously demonstrated, the speculative bubble is now bursting – and a market reset is taking place. In this vital moment, DE SARTHE invites a reevaluation of what constitutes artistic success, a renewal of the notion that art’s greatest significance lies not in its commercial value, but its importance, even necessity, as agents of culture. By highlighting unsold works from our previous exhibitions, we aim to challenge preconceived notions about the quality or appeal of these works, providing an opportunity to initiate a dialogue about the intrinsic worth of art.

Opening: Saturday, February 8th, 3-7pm

Gallery address: 26/F, M Place, 54 Wong Chuk Hang Road

DE SARTHE is pleased to present Here Today, Gone Tomorrow, a solo exhibition by Chongqing-based artist Hou Jianan, featuring a new body of works on canvas that allude to the illusion of fulfilment that manifests in the cross-breeze of consumerist society and digital gratification. Sweet and plump yet empty and fragile, Hou’s imagery reflects upon the changes in perception induced by the falsehoods of artificiality and elucidates the ephemeral environments in which we currently exist. Here Today, Gone Tomorrow opens November 30th and runs through January 25th.

Central to Hou Jianan’s practice is the idea that hedonistic tendencies are amplified in and by the age of accelerationist technology. The desire for material and consumption is exponentially expanded as perceivable reality is made brighter, fuller, and more colorful through digital means. Hou’s manipulation of imagery reflects upon this phenomenon; combining digitally saturated compositions with the dimensionality of layered acrylics, the artist inflates certain objects while flattening others, crafting overtones of artificiality evocative of contemporary visual experiences. 

Gallery address: 26/F, M Place, 54 Wong Chuk Hang Road

DE SARTHE is pleased to present Into the Matrix, a solo exhibition by Shanghai-based artist Lu Xinjian, featuring a new series of works on canvas and luminous installation artworks. Observing the relationship between urban and technological advancement, the exhibition draws inspiration from the similarities between the infrastructures of civilization and the constructs of contemporary culture. An extension of the artist’s iconic visual language, Lu’s mesmerizing artworks elucidate the layered spectrum of the post-human era. Into the Matrix opens October 5th and runs through November 23rd.

As of the 21st century, society has become an increasingly formatted existence. The form of grids has become ubiquitous to the prevailing landscape, manifesting in social platforms, electronic hardware, and city planning alike. A new ecosystem has been fostered as a by-product of development, wherein individual entities serve as data points in a matrix, collectively illuminating the topography of the digital Anthropocene. 

Opening: Saturday, October 5th, 2 - 7 pm

Gallery address: 26/F, M Place, 54 Wong Chuk Hang Road

DE SARTHE is pleased to present Melting Suns on the Screen, a solo exhibition by Hong Kong-based artist Liao Jiaming, concluding the gallery’s eighth annual de Sarthe Artist Residency (deSAR). Featuring a new body of installation, video, and mixed media artworks, the exhibition imagines an abandoned site of worship, in which relics of a fictional religion are preserved and now discovered. The exhibition’s mystic narrative is founded on the notion that personal desires are the root of all belief systems. Mediating between the spiritual and secular in contemplation of contemporary desires, the artworks manifest as sacralized artefacts of the technological era. Melting Suns on the Screen opens August 31st and runs through September 28th. 

Since the dawn of civilization, humanity has given birth to innumerable faiths in search of ultimate fulfillment. For millennia, we looked to the gods hoping that our wishes would be granted, and we have made beautiful objects in our desire-driven devotion. In the age of instant gratification, Liao Jiaming examines the constructs of faith through similar paradigms in contemporary technology. As he invents his own technocentric religion, the artist reenacts the role of both the creator and the follower.

Gallery address: 26/F, M Place, 54 Wong Chuk Hang Road

DE SARTHE is pleased to announce its eighth annual de Sarthe Artist Residency (deSAR) as well as its resident artist, Liao Jiaming (b. 1992 in Guangdong. Lives and works in Hong Kong.) The artist will create new artworks using the gallery as his studio, which will be open to the public during normal gallery hours throughout the duration of the residency. deSAR runs from June 29th to August 30th and will culminate in a month-long exhibition opening August 31st.

Since the beginning of civilization, humanity has given birth to innumerable religions, cults, and superstitions in desire of divination. Bound by our earthly bodies, we subconsciously gravitate toward unknown beings who we believe are in possession of higher knowledge – but what does this entail in the contemporary information age? Over the course of the residency, the artist will transform the gallery space into a site reminiscent of worship, where AI and machines undergo sacralization as if prophets and relics of the technological era. To comprise a series of videos, installations, and mixed-media artworks, Liao aims to mediate between the scientific and the non-secular, exploring the unconscious human psyche behind artificial entities, rituals, as well as narratives.

During the residency, visitors are invited not only to interact with the artist, but also an AI-based installation created by Liao that generates fictitious tarot cards. Available only during the residency period, the resultant images will be used as raw materials in the artist’s creative process.

Gallery address: 26/F, M Place, Wong Chuk Hang

DE SARTHE is pleased to present Art Survivors, a solo exhibition by Hong Kong-based artist Mak2, following her major success at one of the most significant events on the art-world calendar. After a harrowing art week – an annual period during which real-world capitalist agendas are unleashed from behind the noble façade of art – the exhibition presents a chance for escape, where players of the art world may decompress via a detachment from tangible reality and a self-deprecating laugh. Featuring a first-person zombie shooting game set in an imaginary art fair as well as a new body of works on canvas titled Home From Home, the exhibition hints facetiously at the undercurrents of the art world system and congratulates those who have been able to survive thus far.

All visitors are invited to play the game.

Opening: Saturday, May 4th, 2024 (the artist will be present)

In conjunction with #SouthsideSaturday

Gallery address: 26/F, M Place, 54 Wong Chuk Hang Road

DE SARTHE is pleased to present Everything is Unreal Until It’s Not, a solo exhibition by New York-based artist Lov-Lov debuting a piercing, semi-organic installation as well as a new body of videos and works on canvas. Within the exhibition, the artist initiates a dialogue via a stark contrast of the idyllic and the unsettling. A study of comforts and catastrophes in the technological era, the presented artworks not only speculate the authenticity of a virtual mirage but allude to the intricate illusions of reality, where everything is unreal until it is not. Lov-Lov’s exhibition opens on March 23rd and runs through April 27th 2024.
Lov-Lov is a fictitious artist identity developed by Lin Jingjing, as an amorphous vessel of art creation. Inspired by the versatility and fluidity of artificial intelligence, Lov-Lov is a self-defined entity free of physical indicators and binary definitions such as age, gender, or ethnicity. An isolation of the transhumanist capabilities enabled by contemporary technology, Lov-Lov aims to be a noumenal mimesis of consciousness that peeks behind the veil of empirical reality.

Opening Reception | 2-7pm

Gallery address: 26/F, M Place, 54 Wong Chuk Hang Road

DE SARTHE is pleased to present What We Are, inaugurating the year with a eight-artist group exhibition that reflects upon manifestations of human nature under contemporary context. Featuring a curated body of videos, installations, photographic works, as well as works on canvas, the exhibition inquires into the corners and alleys of the human psyche and illumines both the motivations and complexities behind our subconscious-driven behavior.

From the seven capital virtues and deadly sins to modern science and psychology, the subject of human behavior has been speculated, theorized, judged, and justified on repeat. While our actions, and the consequences of said actions, have evolved along with the eras, the core ethos that governs humanity remains seemingly familiar. What defines humanity on the most fundamental level? What are we as a collective entity?

Participating artists: Dong Jinling, Lin Jingjing, Lin Zhipeng A.K.A. 223, Mak2, Xin Yunpeng, Zhong Wei, Zhou Wendou and Ma Sibo

Gallery address; 26/F, M Place, 54 Wong Chuk Hang Road

DE SARTHE is pleased to present Possible World, Seoul-based artist Jung Jin’s first solo exhibition at the gallery and in Hong Kong, featuring a body of interconnected works on canvas and paper. Using abstract references to well-known children’s animations, including Walt Disney’s “The Little Mermaid” and “Snow White,” the artist crafts a collection of annotated imagery that identifies and highlights the feelings of anxiety and confusion that underlie the overstatements of optimism commonly perceived from classic fairytales. Constructing alternative interpretations by juxtaposing figurative depictions with geometric patterns, Jung Jin reveals an unexpected level of empirical realism within fantasy and introduces a world in which the absurdly idealistic ethos of fiction seems possible after all.

Using selected scenes from Walt Disney’s iconic movies, the artist overlays painted collages of abstract, geometric, and disorienting patterns that are suggestive of shock, uncertainty, and displacement. From scenes of Ariel standing for the very first time to Snow White searching her way through the forest, Jung Jin magnifies the moments of trial and tribulation within each story and accentuates the undercurrents of vulnerability that are finely woven into the structures of fantasy. The artist also utilizes a technique through which she creates layered cut-outs within her compositions, uncovering hidden messages within the image. Dissecting encounters of fear and trauma – and consequentially, of confrontation and transformation – the artist elucidates the nuanced dynamics that form the realms of fiction and illumines the points of reality and resonance that enable the perpetuation of illusion.

Gallery address: 26/F, M Place, 54 Wong Chuk Hang Road

DE SARTHE is pleased to present its third solo exhibition for its represented, Beijing-based artist Zhong Wei, titled Weight Drifting. The exhibition is a continuation of the artist’s ongoing exploration of the contemporary socio-technological landscape and its unchecked fostering of transhumanism. Featuring a new body of works on canvas, the exhibited artworks initiate a dialogue regarding the invisible shift in power dynamics between man and machine, consequential to the advancement of artificial intelligence but also the atrophy of manual effort enabled by accelerationist technology. Under the brush of Zhong Wei, the metamorphoses of digital textures into organic entities appear as if a study of living subjects and specimens. Weight Drifting opens 7 October and runs through 11 November.

The term ‘weight’ bears a specific meaning in the world of artificial intelligence (AI), referring to the importance given to an input and its correlated influence on the output – in essence, the basis on which AI builds its identification and judgment. Under a social context, ‘weight’ can be used to describe the extent of power or authority that certain individuals or parties may have over others and the decision-making process at-large. These invisible systems, though similar in logic and operation, seemingly exist in parallel in two different worlds, but Zhong Wei asks: “What about the weight between man and technology?”

Automation and its increasingly prominent role in the development of social ecology has become plain to see as it inserts itself into almost every aspect of life. However, to what event does humanity still retain significance in the advancement of technology? Surrounded by the anarchic pandemonium that Zhong Wei portrays, the answer might perhaps be “little to none.” From his large-scale artworks up to 3.5 meters in length to his array of smaller sized canvases, Zhong Wei’s maximalist, visceral, and unapologetic visual language speaks to unbated intensity at which technology operates. Layering a multitude of digital textures and motifs, his painted imagery resembles living and growing amorphous creatures that walk among a disorienting and pixelated world. Dwarfed afront his artworks, the experience is as if visiting a science museum of unnatural history, with exhibits evocative of both awe and anxiety.

Gallery address: 26/F, M Place, 54 Wong Chuk Hang Road

DE SARTHE is pleased to present Hong Kong-based artist Chan Ka Kiu’s solo exhibition, Late to the Party, concluding the gallery’s seventh annual de Sarthe Artist Residency (deSAR). An exploration of the human psyche vis-à-vis notions of fun, fame, fortune, and mortality, the exhibition features newly developed multimedia and installation artworks that collectively form an immersive journey through the artist’s imagined heaven, earth, and hell. Interspersed with references to religion, art history, contemporary commodities, as well as frivolous desires, the exhibition is a mischievous yet pensive response to the questions “What happens when you die?” and more importantly, “What does it mean to live?” Late to the Party opens September 9th and runs through September 30th.

Late to the Party started with the artist’s contemplation of the notorious “27 Club” - an informal list of popular musicians, artists, actors, and other celebrities who died at age 27. As the exhibition opens right on the verge of the artist’s 28th birthday, its title crafts a self-deprecating remark regarding Ka Kiu’s own desire for celebration and success. Utilizing varied found objects, video footage, and AI-generated imagery, the artist marries the familiar and bizarre in a constructed party-like environment. Filled with fictitious partygoers, the exhibition is an interpretation of what happens to humanity following the rainbow bridge.

With reference to Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights (1503-1515), the space is divided into three fluid areas, bound together by the artist’s use of red lighting and objects.  Upon entering the space, a partition composed of floor-to-ceiling blinds separates the viewer from the gallery interior. Titled Peep Please (2023), the exhibition’s first artwork is a wall of red, venetian blinds on which colors reminiscent of a sunset or sunrise are projected. With light partially seeping through its slits, the artwork appears as if a sign or threshold that one must cross to be enlightened of the other side.

Beyond the enigmatic checkpoint is the first area – heaven. Visitors are greeted by three deities, namely Jesus, Siddhartha, and Lucifer, conversing – and singing a song – about humanity. Titled “IN LOVE” by 3 in 1 (2023), the three-channel video minutes a meeting between the higher beings via a mix of edited found and AI-generated footage. Displayed in three vertical panels, the videos are arranged to recall a church altar, yet of different faiths combined. As if a musical ensemble, the deities sing about love to a melody similar to that of a boy-band style love song. Thinking about love, life, and death as the ultimate equalizers, Ka Kiu’s artwork is laced with underlying themes of unity and oneness.

Gallery address: 26/F, M Place, 54 Wong Chuk Hang Road

DE SARTHE is pleased to announce its seventh annual de Sarthe Artist Residency (deSAR) as well as its resident artist, Chan Ka Kiu. Chan Ka Kiu was born in 1995 in Toronto, Canada and lives and works in Hong Kong. She received her M.F.A. from City University of Hong Kong, School of Creative Media in 2021. Exploring themes surrounding the topic of the notorious '27 Club', the artist will create new artworks using the gallery as her studio, which will be open to the public during normal gallery hours throughout the duration of the residency.

deSAR starts on 28 June and will run through 8 September and culminate in a three-week exhibition.

Gallery address: 26/F, M Place, Wong Chuk Hang

DE SARTHE is pleased to present the first solo exhibition for its newly represented artist Caison Wang, titled Hyperland. Featuring a body of large-scale works on canvas, the exhibition combines whimsical yet ghoulish imagery with deconstructed references to humanity and religious deities. Contemplating the binary notions of morality and more, the artworks depict a liminal world in which Wang reinterprets heaven and hell as a psychological experience as part of the empirical human condition. Hyperland opens May 6th and runs through June 25th.

Titled after Hyperion, referring to the “one who passes through the sky or looks down from the sky” in Greek mythology, Hyperland observes fictional characters Jack and Mary through the lens of an omniscient narrator. Illustrated as two skeletal figures, Jack and Mary are neutral representations of human beings. As if the protagonists to one continuous story, the figures are seen acting out different scenarios in each artwork while immersed in surrealist landscapes that the artist built via 3-D modeling software. Combining digital lattices with near-psychedelic colors evocative of either enlightenment or hell, Caison Wang’s artworks allude to the idea that pain or transcendence under the context of morality is but an artificial construct generated by and for the human psyche. A perplexing amalgamation of idyllic and dystopic imagery, Hyperland proposes more than a rejection of the pre-existing definitions of good versus evil but issues a challenge toward all dichotomies set forth by dogmatic philosophies.

Gallery address: 26/F, M Place, 54 Wong Chuk Hang Road

DE SARTHE is pleased to present A/S/L, its second solo exhibition for Beijing-based artist Wang Jiajia featuring a new body of mixed media works on canvas. Utilizing a recurring motif of vivid, large, and beast-like pupils throughout the exhibition, A/S/L contemplates the displacement of one’s vision from the physical body, caused by the contemporary and digital modes of seeing. A/S/L opens 18 March and runs through 29 April.

An abbreviation of the phrase “Age/Sex/Location,” the exhibition title recalls the artist’s early experiences of seeking human connection online. In a time when profile pictures had not yet existed, online conversations with strangers often began with the question “A/S/L?” in attempt to know the person on the other side of the faceless computer window. As social technology developed under the guise of global communication, human vision has been extended beyond the limitations of physical reality. The result is in a disconnection between the observer and the observed.

Influenced by art history, comics, animation, as well as pop and Internet culture, Wang Jiajia’s artworks are imbued with a strong personality characterized by vivid colours and gestural abstractions, facilitated by the artist’s impasto technique. Drawing inspiration from video games, the eyes portrayed within Wang Jiajia’s artworks are reminiscent of the final bosses that stand ready to bring players to their doom. Peering out from thickets of paint with menace and authority, an exchange of gazes occurs as viewers encounter each work. This involuntary confrontation forces an awareness vis-à-vis the intimate spatial relationship between the artwork and the viewer, in which both are placed in relation to the other. Though aesthetically referencing the digital world in all its overwhelming saturation, chaos, fluidity, and conflict, Wang Jiajia’s artworks in A/S/L, via its compulsory interaction with the viewer, anchors its recipient within their physical surroundings.

Gallery address: 26/F, M Place, 54 Wong Chuk Hang Road

DE SARTHE is pleased to present Berlin based artist, Xinyan Zhang’s solo exhibition, Out of the Time. Xinyan Zhang’s practice explores the weakness of human nature and the state of existence, influenced by her childhood experience of growing up in Shenzhen, China in the early 90s, a time of rapid economic development and social instability. Her work often features chaotic imagery of survivors in ruins, with their eyes, hearts, or other body parts hollowed out or mutilated. Within the abstract space of her paintings, the wounded victims allude to the decay and withering of the modern spiritual world. Desire, betrayal, indifference, among other human weaknesses distort the spirituality of human existence – Xinyan Zhang’s work visualises this corruption, with a particular focus on the underprivileged status of women and children in society.

As a child, Xinyan Zhang was regularly kept at home for protection due to a fear of human trafficking, having to endure hunger and loneliness everyday while her parents were away. This occupied most of her upbringing, causing insecurity to take root in her young heart. Under these circumstances, painting became her warmest companion.

Painted in both classic oil paint and contemporary acrylic, Xinyan Zhang's spontaneous and carefree compositions on canvas may be regarded to have a childlike playfulness, while straightforward and full of narrative. She has been particularly sensitive to colour since she was a child, and it has become a distinctive focus in her work. Her creative approach is characterized by automatism and spontaneity, with swift yet decisive brushwork reflecting her affinity for quick sketching. Fleeting images inspired by her memories of real events, personal experiences, and the news populate her vibrant and busy paintings.

Gallery address: 26/F, M Place, 54 Wong Chuk Hang Road

DE SARTHE is pleased to present Room 1005, a solo exhibition by Beijing-based artist Zhou Wendou that explores the inexplicable and helpless state experienced by the artist during a time of social suspension. Named after the artist’s studio door number in Beijing, the exhibition indicates the artist’s perception of temporality and reality in the confined space for almost two months. The building where Zhou Wendou’s studio was located was later demolished, and the artist’s memories, helplessness and longings disappeared at once, leaving only the rubble. Room 1005 is a retrospective that freezes and captures the fragments of the artist’s emotions and contradictions. The presented works are reproductions of the artist’s reconstruction and interpretation of his aspiration for time and his anxiety generated by spatial constraint.

Though Zhou Wendou felt muddle-headed due to the stagnation of time and the loss of his ability to act freely in his seclusion from human interaction, it prompted him to utilize his observant characteristics, which started a dialogue with the daily objects that surrounded him. The long-term communication evoked deep memories and emotional touches, resulting in a fictional narrative and query of the objects’ meanings.

Gallery address: 26/F, M Place, 54 Wong Chuk Hang Road

DE SARTHE is pleased to announce its new location with an inaugural group show On-Going featuring 12 selected works of its represented artists, participating in the October #SouthsideSaturdayprogram.

Occupying the 26th floor of M Place, Wong Chuk Hang, DE SARTHE is determined to continue its boundary pushing practice at the new location, through thoughtfully curated exhibitions and cutting-edge programs, supporting emerging Asian artists.

The inaugural show On-Going brings the audience on re-exploration of our featured artists’ significant evolvement through their artistic practices in the past 6 years. Artists include Double Fly Art Center, Liang Ban, Lin Jingjing, Lu Xinjian, Ma Sibo, Mak2, Richard Streitmatter-Tran, Xin Yunpeng, Zhong Wei, and Zhou Wendou.

Gallery address: 26/F, M Place, 54 Wong Chuk Hang Road

de Sarthe is pleased to present Hong Kong artist Eugene Lun (b. 1998)'s first solo exhibition with the gallery, The Forbidden Happiness, concluding de Sarthe's sixth annual artist residency (deSAR). Featuring Augmented Reality (AR)-infused prints and paintings in an immersive setting, the artworks have been created during the two-month residency based on the artist's renewed curiosity and exploration of human psychology on adhering to society's values and rules. The exhibition illustrates various scenarios where the comedic sausage character [Cheong1] [Cheong4] has differing responses in everyday life circumstances while exploring boundaries and social conventions in modern society. The artist aims to provoke audiences to retrace their instinctive acts and reasoning behind their habitual actions when they encounter the aforesaid scenarios. The Forbidden Happiness opens on 10 September and runs until 30 September 2022.

Gallery address: 20/F Global Trade Square, 21 Wong Chuk Hang Road, Wong Chuk Hang

de Sarthe is pleased to announce its sixth annual de Sarthe Artist Residency (deSAR) as well as its resident artist, Eugene Lun (b. 1998, Hong Kong. Lives and works in Hong Kong). The artist will create new artworks using the gallery as his studio, which will be open to the public during normal gallery hours throughout the duration of the residency. deSAR runs from 9 July to 16 September 2022 and will culminate in a 2-week exhibition.

Lun’s creative practice investigates the invisible boundaries in daily life; the unspoken rules put forward by the pressures of social conventions and norms. Contemplating this notion under the context of his residency, Lun will transform the space into a whimsical playground-like setting that defies the formal experience of visiting a gallery. In conjunction to physical interventions, he will also create an entirely new series of Augmented Reality (AR)-infused paintings, prints, and installations that feature an eccentric cast of comedic sausage characters.

Through overtones of humor and absurdity in both his imagery and design of the space, Lun aims to challenge not only the conventional etiquettes of gallery-visiting but the traditional modes of artmaking as well.

Gallery address: 20/F, Global Trade Square, No. 21 Wong Chuk Hang Road

de Sarthe is pleased to present artist Xin Yunpeng’s third solo exhibition Simultaneous with the gallery, featuring a new body of installation and video works. The exhibition focuses on the intertextual juxtaposition of visual space and time. Through the artworks, the artist reconstructs his personal memory and evokes collective resonance under a site-specific context. Simultaneous opens on 14 May and runs through 2 July.

Xin Yunpeng’s Simultaneous (2022) comprises 12 parabolic photography lights facing each other in a circle. The lights are programmed to flash consecutively every second in a counterclockwise sequence. Owing to their close proximity and the highly uneven ratio of light to space, it becomes challenging for the naked eye to distinguish which light is emitting the flash and which ones are simply reflecting off of the other. Through this process, Xin Yunpeng is able to create a sense of directionless confusion using ready-made objects while generating tension in the surrounding atmosphere.

Contrary to the literal meaning of “simultaneous”, Towards the World (2022) is a ten-screen video installation that documents a subway train entering the same station at different times. The artwork is a further development from the body of video works shown in Xin Yunpeng’s 2018 exhibition. As the train drives through the ten screens, the delay in timing between each panel fragments the image of  Towards the World (1980s) - the mural inside the station - and creates a kind of broken timeline.

Gallery address: 20/F, Global Trade Square, No. 21 Wong Chuk Hang Road

de Sarthe is pleased to present its fifth solo exhibition for Beijing- and New York-based contemporary artist Lin Jingjing. The exhibition, titled Elsewhere, features a new body of mixed media works on canvas that contemplate the collective displacement from reality caused by the near-surreal ongoing chain of global events. Integrating narratives of extraterrestrial phenomena into settings of vaguely familiar land and cityscapes, the artist constructs an alternate dimension revealed through a series of large-scale windows that line the gallery space. A poetic yet eerie speculation of the prevailing world at large, the exhibition illumines an imagined paradigm in which the boundaries of reality and unreality have seemingly dissipated – a dramatic reflection of the social, political, and technological concussions that currently reverberate around the globe. Elsewhere opens on 26 March and runs through 7 May.

Lin Jingjing’s Utopian Reality (2021-) is a series of mixed media diptychs comprised of silk thread, acrylic paint, and archival pigment print on canvas. The near-theatrical artworks depict solitary figures, some dressed in futuristic attire, whose faces are either obscured or turned away from the viewer. The composition of each work is partitioned by bold, black lines, as if the viewer is looking through a window. Two meters tall and two meters wide, these disproportionately large windows reveal picturesque sights of urban architecture and natural landscapes that stretch into the vast distance. Comprising lakes, mountains, as well as football fields and swimming pools, the imagery appears familiar yet estranged, lacking in identifiers that would allow one to place its location.

de Sarthe is pleased to present its third solo exhibition for Shanghai-based artist Wang Xin, titled In the Flow of Becoming - An Awakening Art Log from a Fictional AI Artist. The exhibition features a new body of interactive, multimedia, and sculptural artworks that simulate creations conceived by a fictional artificial intelligent (AI) artist. During the exhibition, performers will complete a series of creative tasks under the instruction and guidance of the AI artist, including dictating, engraving, and cutting. Integrating machine-fabricated objects with NFTs (non-fungible tokens) as well as the human hand, the artworks collectively form a surreal and immersive experience that explores the creative capacity of technology and the role of human consciousness in the process of artmaking. A spiritual analysis of the advancing intervention of technology in art, the exhibition questions the fundamental meaning and criteria of art and being an artist.

Gallery address: 20/F, Global Trade Square, No. 21 Wong Chuk Hang Road

de Sarthe is pleased to host Make It Work HK Charity Art Auction, featuring 51 artworks generously donated by Hong Kong galleries and their artists, as well as art students from local schools. The event aims to raise funds and awareness for Make It Work HK and empower the working poor in Hong Kong. Previewing at de Sarthe from 15 to 17 December 2021, all artworks are available for bidding online at https://hk.givergy.com/FrenchChamber/ from 1 pm HKT on 1 December 2021 until 7 pm HKT on 17 December 2021, while selected artworks given by galleries and artists will also be offered at the live auction by Christie's during the cocktail reception on 17 December 2021.

Gallery address: 20/F, Global Trade Square, No. 21 Wong Chuk Hang Road

de Sarthe is pleased to present its third solo exhibition for Hong Kong-based conceptual artist Mak2 (Mak Ying Tung 2), titled House of Fortune. Featuring a new body of installations and videos as well as newly developed works from her iconic series Home Sweet Home (2019-), the exhibition contemplates the correlation between value and belief under the context of Chinese Fengshui and big data in the prevailing digital era. Using herself as the subject, Mak2 aims to dis­­sect the criteria of what constitutes and contributes to value while performing individual experiments on the exhibited works. House of Fortune opens on 16 October and runs through 4 December.

Originally named Mak Ying Tung, the artist added the ‘2’ to her name in 2018 after visiting a Fengshui master in the hopes of gaining fame and fortune by perfecting the number of strokes in her Chinese name. The endorsement of her new identity marked the beginning of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Attesting to this phenomenon, the artist sought to maximize the success of her exhibition House of Fortune by seeking affirmation from not only theological but scientific authorities. To streamline the Fengshui master’s prediction made three years ago, Mak Ying Tung 2 shortens her name to Mak2 in 2021.

Mak2’s multimedia installation Feeding the Multitude comprises a heap of 3D-printed crystals and two projected videos of running binary code. Borrowing the religious belief that Chinese gods bring good fortune, the artist invites a Fengshui master to perform a consecration ritual (Kaiguang) on a digital file that contains the 3D model of a crystal. With the file, the artist prints out a mound of minuscule sculptures, all of which theoretically carrying the master’s blessing. Played on a loop, innumerable 1s and 0s run from the ceiling down, across the wall, and onto the pile of printed sculptures. The projections each consist of a set of binary code; one generated from the crystals’ 3D model file, and the other from the audio recording of the Kaiguang ritual. While the initial ceremony was performed only on the digital file, the notion that its effect will transfer onto any subsequent products suggests that value will exist as long as it is believed as such. By translating the Fengshui master’s blessing into an array of different physical forms and media, the installation alludes to the replicability of faith.

de Sarthe is pleased to present Hong Kong and Shanghai-based artist Chen Pin Tao aka AznGothBoy’s solo exhibition, Violin Makers and Seamstresses I: The Caveman, The Literati, The Iconoclast, concluding de Sarthe’s fifth annual artist residency (deSAR). The exhibition features interwoven series of installations, sculptures, and canvas placed sporadically within a sprawling one-way labyrinth. Enclosed in clinical curtains atop artificial grass, the developed artworks collectively construct a grimy, post-apocalyptic, liminal wasteland, an imagined dimension in which the social-normative perception of reality is obscured. Contemplating Eros, Thanatos, and post-secularism under the nihilistic context of a post-science, post-Internet era, the exhibition forces the confrontation of human nature in the form of an immersive, LARPING-esque (Live Action Role Playing) visual experience. Violin Makers and Seamstresses I: The Caveman, The Literati, The Iconoclast opens on 18 September and runs through 2 October.

There is a growing existential vacuum in the 21st century, exacerbated by capitalist realism and the technology-driven hyperinflation of information and commodities. Objects and images have been processed through endless cycles of mass reproduction until they are born as but empty vessels, ready to be appropriated and reinvented. Contrasting between the pristinely fabricated nature of found objects and images with the primitive hand, the artist aims to create an overtly fake and artificial environment that displaces its viewers while delivering an intentionally juvenile and primal response against the constructs of artificiality, stimulating tensions between accelerated human techne and primitive desires that result in a hyperbolic statement regarding materialism, spirituality, and the body in contemporary life.

Gallery address: 20/F, Global Trade Square, Wong Chuk Hang

de Sarthe is pleased to announce its fifth annual de Sarthe Artist Residency (deSAR) as well as its resident artist, Bobby Chen Pin Tao (b. Australia 1994. Lives and works in Hong Kong). The artist will create new artwork using the gallery as his studio, which will be open to the public during normal gallery hours throughout the duration of the residency. deSAR runs from 13 July to mid-September and will culminate in a short exhibition.

During the residency, Chen will build a series of large-scale sculptural installations and spatial interventions that alter the gallery space, transforming it into a dream-like, psychedelic, and LARPING-esque (Live Action Role Play) experience. The space will be divided to create a disorienting labyrinth that recalls a decontextualized role-playing game (RPG). Investigating the ontological natures of contemporary hyperreality and hyperstition, the artist aims to generate complex narratives within the exhibition space that challenge the constructs of perception, as well as the definitions of real versus artificial.

Gallery address: 20/F, Global Trade Square, No. 21 Wong Chuk Hang Road

de Sarthe is pleased to present its second solo exhibition for Beijing-based contemporary artist Zhong Wei, titled 省電模式［■□□□］· phone died. The exhibition features a new series of works on canvas as well as a large-scale installation that contemplates modes of communication in times of social sterility and 21st century, post-Covid-19 angst. 省電模式［■□□□］· phone died opens May 15 and runs through July 3.

Alien-like organic forms and fragmented compositions are recurring motifs in Zhong Wei’s artworks. Sourcing his imagery from the dynamic and vivid visual language of Internet culture, Zhong Wei digitally collages select elements into complexly layered compositions before transferring his creations onto canvas via acrylic, archival pigment print, and/or silkscreen.

Zhong Wei’s practice draws inspiration from a vast range of subjects, particularly contemporary culture and its ever-changing forms. His most recent body of work incorporates new narratives that reflect upon his own fruitless and exhausted efforts against the pandemic, as well as a lingering uncertainty and anxiety caused by the current state of social standstill.

Gallery address: 20/F, Global Trade Square, No. 21 Wong Chuk Hang Road

de Sarthe is pleased to announce ReadySetFulfill, a special collaborative project by the gallery’s represented artist Andrew Luk and Samuel Swope, a Hong Kong-based artist and technologist. The exhibition is comprised of new artwork, including sculptural and multimedia installations that collectively form a sprawling drone racecourse throughout and around the gallery space. First Person View (FPV) competitive drone races are scheduled to occur during the course of the exhibition. ReadySetFulfill opens 13 March and runs through 8 May. 

The emerging sport of FPV drone racing features prominently both as live performance and as recorded video work. The races advance a conversation about humanity's relationship to speed and progress at large. They exemplify Philosopher Paul Virilio’s concept of “dromology,” (the science or logic of speed), a term he coined positing that the development of society and culture is akin to a race—with the fastest competitor being the most successful. Further still, drone racing also collapses the boundaries between man and machine. As pilots wear immersive VR headsets to pilot the drones via onboard cameras, their vision becomes the drones’ vision and their movements become the drones’ movements. This melding of man and machine manifests the collective desire to transcend our physical, mortal bodies and accelerate towards a more efficient, faster, and cybernetic existence.

Gallery address: 20/F, Global Trade Square, No. 21 Wong Chuk Hang Road

de Sarthe is pleased to present its second exhibition for the artist group Double Fly Art Center, titled Double Fly Awkward Pay. The exhibition features a series of videos, performance, and installation artworks that epitomizes the combination of absurdist comedy and critique of the art world that centers the riotous practice of Double Fly Art Center. Double Fly Awkward Pay opens on 21 November 2020 and runs through 23 January 2021.

"Double Fly Awkward Pay is a project based on the fact that the artists are running low on public funding. It is a sort of secret weapon for desperate times, and the goal was not to be vigilantes. A question drove the making of this project: How did we paint so well but still not sell? With that in mind, Double Fly cut apart a 30-meter painting that they collectively created a few years ago into smaller sizes, hoping to exchange them for currency. This action is as if one is doubly negated one's artwork. Doubly fly then made a more deeply layered transaction with the gallery, at a level that can roughly be described as: credit + getting rich*wealth - talent = 0. Double Fly Art Center's slogan this time is: Become a decision-maker in the midst of nothingness!"