Xu Xiaoguo's major solo exhibition “Las Ruinas Circulares” will be on view at Long Museum (West Bund) from January 18th to March 30th, 2025. As an artist of the post-1970s generation, Xu Xiaoguo’s artistic development and creative output have been inextricably linked to the rapid changes that have occurred in Chinese society and the art world over the past two decades. He has been a witness to and participant in the globalization of art, observing its evolution from social realism and conceptualism to the ontological depth of art and conceptual expression. His initial work consists of large-scale narrative paintings that integrate myth and reality. He has subsequently continued to explore the expression of reality from the ontological depth of painting. Over the course of his professional career, Xu Xiaoguo has created several series of paintings, including series of “Myth”, of “Cage”, of “Texture”, of “Starlight” and of “Flower”. In each of these, he has firmly sought to explore the depth of real feelings and the language of painting, striving to find breakthroughs within the limits of his own self. This has made Xu Xiaoguo stand notably among few Chinse artists insisting on the ongoing process of transformation.

The name of this exhibition is taken from the short story “Las Ruinas Circulares” (1940) of the Argentine world-renowned writer Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986). Borges describes in this short story: “In a birdless dawn the magician saw the concentric blaze close round the wall in the circular ruins. For a moment, he thought of taking refuge in the river, but then he knew that death was coming to crown his old-age and absolve him of his labours. He walked into the shreds of flame. But they did not bite into his flesh, they caressed him and engulfed him without heat or combustion. With relief, with humiliation, with terror, he understood that he too was a mere appearance, dreamt by another.”

In a recent interview, Xu Xiaoguo revealed that this passage he had read just a few years ago caused a profound impact on him. The blaze and the magician depicted in this story led to his realization that there is a transcendent force in the universe, governing the infinite circular processes of time and space. And there is a coherent inner logic of becoming within each circularity. This also appears to be an allusion to the trajectory of his artistic practice, elucidating the dynamics of his own self-development and the variations in his creative output. For him, all changes are organic and natural in themselves, and the creative changes themselves imply changes in his own existential situation. The artist pursues the transcendence while being unable to detach himself from reality. He exists just like the “blaze” depicted in Borges’s “Las Ruinas Circulares”. This also determines the simultaneous nature of his creative endeavour featuring both an essential inquiry and a realistic quest, with the alternating combination of the two constituting a path of continuous advancement.

The works exhibited here span a period of ten years, comprising three series created between 2015 and 2025. The questions and logic of the three series are intertwined, with each series commencing with the unfinished creation of the preceding stage and concluding with the commencement of the subsequent stage. Each series is not merely a question concerned with painting; rather, it is an expression of the artist’s lived experience and an attempt to convey the evolution of his artistic vision. Xu Xiaoguo’s paintings can be interpreted with reference to two distinct traditions: firstly, the modernist tradition of pursuing the essence of art, initiated by Paul Cézanne; and secondly, the tradition of metaphorical expression of the reality since the Northern European Renaissance, characterized by the recurring use of imagery, including the motifs of “flower”, “cage”, “starlight”, and so forth. Those acquainted with the artist’s oeuvre may discern the underlying genealogy that informs the artist’s works, which is shaped by the artist’s unique sensibility and the experiment of painting techniques.

The display of this exhibition also demonstrates the temporal contrast among the works of different stages, akin to an organic circularity. In a manner analogous to the relationship between the individual and the world, between change and eternity, the circularity represents both the conclusion of a stage and the inception of a new one.

About the artist

Xu Xiaoguo was born in Xi'an, Shaanxi in 1977, graduated from Xi'an Academy of Fine Arts with a major in oil painting in 2000, and currently works and lives in Beijing. Xu Xiaoguo works take various artistic forms such as painting, pictorials, video, experimental music and other art form. In recent years, Xu Xiaoguo had been lauded with various accolades for his art, he has won the first prize of the "798 Art Festival Young Artists Invitational Exhibition", the "Beijing Film Academy International New Media Art Triennial" Video Art Young Artist Academy Award, the "Guanghua Qianyu Award", and so on.

His works have been exhibited in many group exhibitions in famous art institutions in China and other countries, including the Kunstmuseum Luzern in Switzerland, the Moscow Museum of Modern Art, the White Rabbit Gallery in Australia, the BWA Contemporary Art Gallery in Poland, the UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, the Today Art Museum, the CAFA Art Museum , the MoCA TAIPEI, the Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts in Taipei, the Macao Museum of Art, the OCT-Contemporary Art Terminal, the Zhu Qi-zhan Art Museum, the Shijiazhuang Art Museum & Academy, the Shanxi Contemporary Art Museum, and the Xi'an Art Museum. 

Significant solo exhibitions include: “Xu Xiaoguo: Las Ruinas Circulares”, Long Museum, Shanghai, 2025. “The Stars”, Whitebox Art Center, Beijing, 2022. “XU XIAOGUO RECENT WORK” , Tang Contemporary Art, Beijing, 2019. “BETWEEN THE GREEN” , Tang Contemporary Art, Hong Kong, China, 2016. “Xu Xiaoguo”, Tang Contemporary Art, Beijing, 2015. “From Space to Texture”, Today Art Museum, Beijing, 2014. “Small Country”, Whitebox Art Center, Beijing, 2012. “2011 Xu Xiaoguo ‘De Noise’ 6/25”, Chun Cui Contemporary Art Space, Beijing, 2011. “WENG FEN & XU XIAOGUO//DWIE LINIE/TWO LINES”, BWA Gallery, Poland, 2010.