Guan Xiao @ Kunsthalle Wien - 'Teenager' Exhibition

Guan Xiao: Teenager 

Kunsthalle Wien

8 October 2025 – 11 January 2026 

Guan Xiao 

Jeanake, 2025

© Guan Xiao, Courtesy the artist and 

David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles/New York

Guan Xiao 

Midhight Pancake, 2025

© Guan Xiao, Courtesy the artist and 

David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles/New York

Guan Xiao 

Cyclemony, 2025

© Guan Xiao, Courtesy the artist and 

David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles/New York

Installation view Guan Xiao: Teenager, 

Glitea, 2025, Kunsthalle Wien 2025

© Guan Xiao, Courtesy the artist and Antenna Space, Shanghai

Photo by Markus Wörgötter

Kunsthalle Wien presents the first solo exhibition in Austria by Guan Xiao (b. 1983, Chongqing, China). Comprising an entirely new body of sculpture and painting, it takes what Guan Xiao describes as the ‘ambiguous life stage’ of the teenager as a starting point for works that reflect upon the currents, conflicts and absurdities of a society impacted by the values of capitalism and liberalism:

A teenager is typically thought to be impulsive, led by their intuition and open to possibilities, changes and uncertainty. They can be dramatic, riven with self-doubt. I see them as both challenging and conquering reality and these ideas echo through this body of work which has a lot to do with this conflicted state of change and uncertainty. – Guan Xiao

Installation view Guan Xiao: Teenager, Kunsthalle Wien 2025

© Guan Xiao, Courtesy the artist and Antenna Space, Shanghai; 

David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles/New York 

and Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler, Berlin/Munich 

Photo by Markus Wörgötter

Installation view Guan Xiao: Teenager, 

Torso, 2025, Kunsthalle Wien 2025

© Guan Xiao, Courtesy the artist 

Photo by Markus Wörgötter

Installation view Guan Xiao: Teenager, 

Torso, 2025, Kunsthalle Wien 2025

© Guan Xiao, Courtesy the artist 

Photo by Markus Wörgötter

A large, furry A-Frame structure bisects the space, creating a tunnel at the centre of the exhibition. Animated by light, it harbours a collection of cast aluminium objects including scaled-up items of cutlery, a moka pot and a series of enlarged eggs. Outside are a series of gnarled tree roots cast in brass, painted and appended with motorcycle parts and cartoon-like clouds of scribble. These anthropomorphic sculptures with mesh plates or antennae-like wands populate the space like a cast of characters. Two modular columns extend respectively pink and blue arms from aluminium, claw-like bases that resemble oversized bunches of bananas. On the walls, a triptych of panels simulates large, palette-shaped windows covered in a thick layer of paint.

Installation view Guan Xiao: Teenager, 

The spent siesta, like a sun-dried memory, 2025; Raining, 2025; 

Approaching Dust, 2025, Kunsthalle Wien 2025

© Guan Xiao, Courtesy the artist and 

David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles/New York

Photo by Markus Wörgötter

Guan Xiao 

Raining, 2025

© Guan Xiao, Courtesy the artist and  

David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles/New York

Guan Xiao 

Raining (detail), 2025

© Guan Xiao, Courtesy the artist and 

David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles/New York

Guan Xiao originally trained as a filmmaker before becoming known for creating sculpture that triggers an impulse for us to create our own narratives and tell stories about what we see. Earlier works resembled museological displays or photography studios that appeared to unite an eclectic selection of objects and images in one scheme. More recent sculpture refers to the Chinese custom of displaying polished tree roots in domestic settings. The practice of root carving dates back to the Warring States Period (474–221 BC), preserving the natural, given form of the wood. Its popularity over the centuries made it a symbol of economic wealth, while becoming a worn-out cultural cliché, denoting a lack of sophistication. In Guan Xiao’s work, the tree root becomes the basis of a singular, mythical creature in an ever-growing multitude of animal or human-like figures. Working with an array of elements – some meticulously hand-crafted, others mass produced – she references a broad range of cultural material that is defamiliarized and uncoupled from its associations to create an ambiguous, semi-fictional space and time.

Teenager returns to fundamental subjects such as food, clothing and shelter to address questions of progress and civilisation, tradition and spirituality that are central to the multi-faceted, playful and poetic work of Guan Xiao. The ‘conflicted state’ of the teenager is used as a metaphor for a society that the artist perceives to be suspended between ‘devotion and restraint’, needs and desires and ancient, philosophical, social and ethical values that are ‘in direct opposition’ to the economic system of capitalism:

China’s imperial history and Confucianism praise restraint suppress individuality. Yets imperial history and Confucianism praise restraint suppress individuality. Yets imperial history and Confucianism praise restraint suppress individuality. Yet subculture, independent cultures throughout history emphasise individuality […]. This contradiction is fundamentally between the philosophical systems of Asia and the economic system of capitalism – a conflict between two modes of thought […]. You might say captitalism is about 'construction', while Asian philosophy is about 'destruction.' – Guan Xiao

Guan Xiao

© Guan Xiao, Courtesy Guan Xiao Studio

Photo: Mathilde Agius and Art Basel

Artist Guan Xiao Biography  

Guan Xiao (b. 1983, Chongqing, China) has held solo exhibitions at Bonner Kunstverein; Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis (both 2019); Kunsthalle Winterthur (2018); Jeu de Paume, Paris (2016); K11 Art Foundation, Shanghai and ICA, London (both 2016). Her work has also been exhibited at Start Museum, Shanghai (2024); Mudam Luxembourg (2023 and 2021); Museum Ludwig, Cologne (2023); Mercedes-Benz Museum, Stuttgart; Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen (both 2022); the 34th Bienial de São Paulo; the 58th Belgrade Biennale (both 2021); X Museum Triennial; Kunstmuseum St. Gallen; Sharjah Art Foundation (all 2020); Triennale Kleinplastik Fellbach; Honolulu Biennial; Migros Museum, Zurich (all 2019); the 57th Venice Biennale; Julia Stoschek Collection, Berlin; M HKA Museum of Contemporary Art, Antwerp (all 2017); 9th Berlin Biennale; ZKM, Karlsruhe (both 2016) and the 13th Biennale de Lyon (2015). Her public art commissions include works for Skulpturenpark Köln (2020); Anyang Public Art Project (2019) and High Line, New York (2017). Guan Xiao lives and works in Beijing.

Publication: Kunsthalle Wien will publish an exhibition catalogue that will also be the first monograph on Guan Xiao. Published in English and German it includes new essays by Chelsea Qianxi Liu, curator at UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing and Sarah Johanna Theurer, curator at Haus der Kunst, Munich alongside an extensive interview between the artist and Michelle Cotton, Artistic Director Kunsthalle Wien.

KUNSTHALLE WIEN 

Museumsquartier, Museumsplatz 1, 1070 Vienna

www.kunsthallewien.at

Andy Warhol: A Factory, Kunsthalle Wien

Andy Warhol: A Factory
Kunsthalle Wien
Through May 2, 1999

I wish I could invent something like bluejeans. Something to be remembered for. Something mass.

Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol: A Factory is a multidisciplinary examination of Andy Warhol’s production which encompasses an unprecedented range of art and archival material in a multimedia framework is presented at the Kunsthalle Wien. This panoramic exhibition utilizes Andy Warhol’s seminal paintings and sculptures as the basis for an investigation of his work in diverse areas, expanding the prevailing perspective on this harbringer of post-war American culture.

Andy Warhol dubbed the three successive studios he kept during his lifetime Factories. Thus the term “factory” in the exhibition’s title designates Andy Warhol’s Factory as a geographical site and a historical concept as well as a traditional factory with numerous contributors. Each Factory was a nucleus for innovative and frequently iconoclastic endeavors – prolifically creative microcosms where Andy Warhol and the Factories’ participants generated a panoply of works embracing paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, photography, film, fashion, video, television, and music. Spanning from the 1950s to the late 1980s, Andy Warhol: A Factory surveys the cross-current of activities that constituted the Factories’ artistic output.

The exhibition is organized as a segmented labyrinth, presenting overlapping components of art in multiple media which break down the traditional hierarchy of disciplines. This methodology serves to illustrate the manner in which Andy Warhol pursued the same subject matter with different artistic vehicles and underscores the numerous approaches which can be taken to consider his endeavors. Andy Warhol: A Factory covers: Graphic and Commercial Art; Publications, Celebrities; Disasters; Brillos; Flowers; Silver Factory Films; Superstars; The Velvet Underground and Nico; Television and Video; Maos; Skulls; Hammers and Sickles; Oxidations; Shoes; Dollar Signs; Rorschachs; Ads; Stitched Photographs; Art-Historical Appropriations; Portraits; and Self-Portraits.

Andy Warhol: A Factory is conceived by Germano Celant, Senior Curator of Contemporary Art at the Guggenheim Museum, New York, with Vivien Greene, Assistant Curator. John Hanhardt, Senior Curator of Film and Media Arts, is supervising the video and film components, the latter in consultation with Callie Angell, Adjunct Curator, Andy Warhol Film Project, at the Whitney Museum of American Art. The acclaimed architect, Gaetano Pesce, has designed the installation. 

A catalogue with an introductory text by Germano Celant and 600 illustrations accompanies this presentation of the exhibition.

Extensive programming, including lectures, special film screenings and a 24 hour film night, from March 27 to March 28, with the presentation of the films Lonesome Cowboys (Andy Warhol, USA 1967/68, color, 16 mm, 105 min., OV), Empire (Andy Warhol, idea: John Palmer, realisation: Henry Romney, camera: Jonas Mekas,  USA 1964, b/w, 16 mm, 8 h 5 min., OV), and Sleep (Andy Warhol, USA 1963, b/w 16 mm, 5 h 21 min., OV, with John Giorno) will accompany the show.

Andy Warhol: A Factory has been organized by The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York in collaboration with the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg. 

Following the presentation at the Kunsthalle Wien, the exhibition will tour to the Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels (May 31–Sept. 19, 1999); the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao (Oct. 19, 1999–Jan. 13, 2000); and the Fundação de Serralves, Porto (Feb. 11–May 14, 2000). The exhibition will conclude in New York as part of the Guggenheim Museum’s millenial program in Summer 2000.

KUNSTHALLE WIEN
Karlsplatz, Treitlstr. 2, 1040 Vienna
www.kunsthallewien.at

Updated 04.07.2019

Desire and the Void. Contemporary Japanese Art and Photography at Kunsthalle Wien Museumsquartier, Vienna

Desire and the Void. Contemporary Japanese Art and Photography
Kunsthalle Wien Museumsquartier
25 April - 20 July 1997

Pictures of large cities, streets, commotion, noise, and permanent movement alternate with timeless views of vast water surfaces, close-up views of the skin, petrified, ageless human beings, standing in empty halls of abandoned Japanese baths. These pictures show female nudes, who are tied up, brilliant flowers, sensuality, eroticism, lust. Desire and emptiness, ecstasy and contemplation, the quick pace of the hustle and bustle of everyday life, and meditation are characteristic pairs of opposites found in contemporary Japanese culture and in their reflection through artistic photography.

In twelve series of works accomplished by leading Japanese artists/photographers, the contradictory positions encountered in the exhibition are brought into an equilibrium by polarizing confrontations. The show also attempts to eliminate existing stereotypes of, and prejudices against, Japan (ranging from the regret over the loss of Japanese identity and of the exotic in general to the criticism of the Japanese tendency to copy Western culture), thereby opening our eyes to Japan's art and, hence, Japanese society of the 1990s.

After the exhibition "Japanese Art of the 1990s" (Frankfurt/Bregenz/Vienna 1990/91), which was organized by Peter Weiermair, the curator of this exhibition, and Fumio Nanjo, "Desire and Void" is the first comprehensive show of Japanese contemporary art which takes into account the remarkable achievements of Japanese artists, particularly in the field of photography, in the past few years - both in a formal and technical sense (regarding the variety of the techniques employed) and as far as topics and contents are concerned.

When using photography as a means of creative expression, Japanese artists, unlike their Western counterparts, tend to deal with the issues of postmodern civilization with mirth and detachment, engaging in a discourse on images and media.

Participating artists: Nobuyoshi Araki, Naoya Hatakeyama, Noritoshi Hirakawa, Miyako Ishiucchi, Osamu Kanemura, Mariko Mori, Yasumasa Morimura, Sakiko Nomura, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Manabu Yamanaka, Miwa Yanagi, Toshihiro Yashiro.

Kunsthalle Wien Museumsquartier
Museumsplatz 1, 1070 Vienna
www.kunsthallewien.at

Updated 03.07.2019