Rituals of Signs and Metamorphosis

Red Brick Art Museum is pleased to present Rituals of Signs and Metamorphosis, a group exhibition curated by Tarek Abou El Fetouh and featuring works of ten renowned artists from different corners of the Asian continent: Ho Tzu Nyen, Hu Xiaoyuan, Anish Kapoor, Tomoko Kashiki, Jawshing Arthur Liou, Taus Makhacheva, Park Chan-Kyong, Walid Raad, Chai Siris and Apichatpong Weeasethakul. 

The exhibition situates the works of these visionary artists between historical and contemporary systems of thinking, which allows the unexpected, the unknown and the mysterious to appear. The works are displayed along an imagined ritual path of concepts and forms, materials and mediums, gestures and actions, and they explore different registers of metamorphoses. This poetic journey leads us to question the certainty of narratives, provokes reflections and ideas, and sparks the desire to seek out divinatory signs.

Rituals of Signs and Metamorphosis aims to create a collective dialogue in a space where various critical and methodological approaches converge to shift rigid patterns of perception and induce intuitive ones. The exhibition sheds light on the concepts behind the aesthetics, offering both a rich visual and reflective experience. It signals various aesthetic and epistemological structures that suggest that nothing is constant in the universe and everything is always changing in form and essence. Rituals of Signs and Metamorphosis touches on our connection with nature and summons ghosts, spirits, dreams, hallucinations, and psychospiritual dynamics. In our hyper-consumerist contemporary world, the works of these artists show their desire to re-enchant it, proposing unlimited possibilities for the future.

About the curator
Tarek Abou El Fetouh has researched the Chinese art scene since 2011 and presented many Chinese artists in his exhibitions around the world. His curatorial projects include the Sharjah Biennale in Sharjah in 2009, Home Works 6 in Beirut in 2013, Lest the Two Seas Meet at MoMA Warsaw in 2015, and The Time is Out of Joint in Sharjah and Gwangju in 2016, Captive of Love at Red Brick Art Museum in 2017.

Red Brick Art Museum
Red Brick Art Museum is a contemporary art museum founded by the couple YAN Shijie and CAO Mei and located in the northeast of Beijing. The museum’s facilities that cover a total area of 20,000 square meters, with nearly 10,000 square meters exhibition space makes it a landmark of this region. Since its opening on May 23, 2014, the museum hosted a series of high-quality exhibitions, in addition to research, education, publications and public activities. Red Brick Art Museum aims at boosting the development of Chinese contemporary art, and contribute to the research and academic studies related to contemporary arts. 

Media enquiries
yangfan@redbrickartmuseum.org