Organized by Sifang Art Museum, Nanjing and Independent Curators International (ICI): “The Infallible Interior”

Guest curator: Su Wei

Sifang Art Museum presents The Infallible Interior, an expanded version of Notes for Tomorrow, featuring artworks selected by curators from around the world to reflect on a new global reality ushered in by the COVID-19 pandemic. Conceived by Independent Curators International (ICI) and guest-curated by Su Wei, the exhibition includes many works shown for the first time in China and the addition of 11 Chinese artists, bringing together works from over 20 countries and regions. In this cultural moment of transition, each work is a source of inspiration from the recent past and a guiding perspective for the future.

The unprecedented circumstances of the past year have suddenly awakened us to the fact that everywhere in the world can be its own center, creating innumerable “interiors.” These countless new centers are shattering the worldwide hierarchies and their related discourse. They either revolutionize and mutate, or corrupt further. They can turn into impenetrable hard rocks that resist all challenges, on into single islands separated from one another. In today’s moment of re-division, long latent questions about interior and exterior have to be confronted again, with the hope that a new language can be created.

The exhibition The Infallible Interior is divided into three chapters: The Colossus in the Greenhouse, Nowhere Located and No Star Is Secondary to My Will. As a whole, they address the precarity in tackling the interior and exterior that are both conflicting with each other and rapidly evolving in contemporary culture. The exhibition asks, to what extent can the inwardness of a particular historical moment be shared, and in what sense do their imaginings of historical residues and future institutions form a common call? The Infallible Interior also attempts to create a dialogue between artistic practices within China and around the globe, providing ways to identify the multiplicity of China and the multifarious meanings it generates, and to confront the linguistic dilemmas that have persisted since the middle of the last century.

Many of the artworks in The Infallible Interior address spirituality as a grounding mechanism, sharing ways to make sense of the world when so much is in doubt. Some engage with specific mythology, while others reveal political structures that may or may not still be standing. The formation of monuments is questioned, and their removal is all but certain. The exhibition addresses art’s potential in the construction of collective memory in a global era. We learn the importance of sustaining and sharing different forms of knowledge, prompting us to re-imagine our conceptions of the future.

Artists included in the exhibition: Madiha Aijaz, Ernesto Bautista, Maeve Brennan, Vajiko Chachkhiani, Luke Luokun Cheng, Nothando Chiwanga, Shezad Dawood, Demian DinéYazhi’, Cao Guimarães, Han Lei, Ilana Harris-Babou, Rei Hayama, Amrita Hepi, Hu Jieming, INVASORIX, Tamás Kaszás, Ali Kazma, Li Ran, A Liberated Library for Education, Inspiration, and Action (Chicago ACT Collective, Interrupting Criminalization, Read/Write Library, Undocumented Projects), David Lozano, Mona Marzouk, Joiri Minaya, Peter Morin, Omehen, Daniela Ortiz, Kristina Kay Robinson, Luiz Roque, Mark Salvatus, She Haiqing, Shi Qing, Ibrahima Thiam, u/n multitude, Wang Yamin, Wang Yuchao, Wei Jia, Wayne Kaumualii Westlake, Yan Shi, Yang Wei, and Zhao Bandi

Notes for Tomorrow was curated from selections by alumni of ICI’s Curatorial Intensive, a professional development program founded in 2010 on principles of international exchange, inclusivity, and knowledge-sharing. With the ever-present backdrop of a global pandemic, ICI turned to these curators to question and reassess values and relevance in contemporary culture, and asked each of them to share an artwork they believe is vital to be seen today.

Contributing curators: Charles Campbell, Freya Chou, Giulia Colletti, Veronica Cordeiro, Allison Glenn, Tessa Maria Guazon, PJ Gubatina Policarpio, Ivan Isaev, Ross Jordan, Drew Kahuʻāina Broderick and Josh Tengan, Esteban King Álvarez, João Laia, Luis Carlos Manjarrés Martínez, Fadzai Veronica Muchemwa, Lydia Y. Nichols, Marie Hélène Pereira, Balimunsi Philip, Josseline Pinto, Florencia Portocarrero, Shahana Rajani, Rachel Reese, Marina Reyes Franco, Mari Spirito, Alexandra Stock, Su Wei, Eszter Szakács, Abhijan Toto, Fatoş Üstek, and Sharmila Wood

Notes for Tomorrow is a traveling exhibition organized and produced by Independent Curators International (ICI) and initiated by Frances Wu Giarratano, Becky Nahom, Renaud Proch, and Monica Terrero. The exhibition was made possible with the generous support of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, VIA Art Fund, and ICI’s Board of Trustees and International Forum.

The presentation at Sifang Art Museum has received additional support provided by Sifang Cultural Group, Nanjing Pukou Culture & Tourism Development Group, and Nanjing Foshou Lake Architecture & Art Culture Development Limited.

About Sifang Art Museum 
Opened in November 2013, Sifang Art Museum gives the historical Nanjing city a major new cultural and artistic institution dedicated to contemporary art and arts in general. The building, commissioned by world-renowned architect Steven Holl, together with all the other architectural works in the Sifang Collective, is recognized as one of the most emblematic ensembles of 21st century architecture. This ambitious project embodies the commitment of its founder, Lu Xun, and its supporting entity Sifang Cultural Group, and operates independently to incorporate philanthropy in support of arts, design, and all creative endeavors. The Sifang Art Museum is not for profit and open year round to the public.

*[1] Four-Party Project, The Research on Hong Yeon-Uk (detail), 2021. Photographs, installation (painting, readymades, bamboo raft), introduction (text), map (fake tiger skin), novella (text carved bamboo slips). Courtesy of the artists. [2] INVASORIX, Nadie aquí es ilegal | Here No One Is Illegal, 2014. Video. © INVASORIX. [3] She Haiqing, Perpetuum, 2021. Solar display stand, glassware, drills, wire brushes, sand disks, polisher, Ammonium dihydrogen phosphate. Courtesy of the artist. [4] Yang Wei, Befall - the light is frozen and wrapped around the statue filled with gas, 2020. TPU industrial rubber, air bag, ballistic coating, polymeric resin, purple copper, refrigeration compressor, resonator, smoke repellent bottle, carbon steel, gas. Courtesy of the artist. [5] David Lozano, Hortua Inhospitalario, 2016/2017. Digital photograph. Courtesy of the artist. [6] Ben Shezad Dawood, Leviathan Cycle, Episode 1: Ben, 2017. Single screen, 12:52 minutes. Commissioned by University of Salford Art Collection, Outset Contemporary Art Fund and Leviathan – Human & Marine Ecology, with support from The Contemporary Art Society.