Zhuang Lingzhi on Her Shanghai Gallery, LINSEED

Ahead of Shanghai's two leading art fairs, West Bund Art & Design and ART021 (9–12 November 2023), Ocula Advisory sits down with Zhuang Lingzhi, founder and director of LINSEED, a young exhibition space in Shanghai.

Started at an old house, where Zhuang showcased her artist friends, LINSEED officially launched in June 2022 with a space in the city's French Concession. It aims to discover and support a new generation of artists across Asia and beyond.

Returning from London, where she opened the collaborative show Gestures of Resistance (5 October–25 November 2023) with A.I. Gallery, Zhuang is now preparing Reading Stones (7 November–28 December 2023), her latest group exhibition at LINSEED in collaboration with the London-based gallery Ginny on Frederick.

In this interview, Zhuang describes Shanghai's art scene post-pandemic, the artists she is currently excited about, and her idea for the city's first noodle club.

How would you introduce LINSEED?

LINSEED started as a side project when I was working at an international blue-chip gallery in Shanghai. I was offered a small room in my friend's house, and I started working with artist friends such as Kiki Xuebing Wang, Li Hei Di, and Shafei Xia. While they have all gone on to make great careers of their own, at the time we were just having fun with a shared interest and passion of making exhibitions together.

After having a well-received show with the British painter, Tom Howse, I decided to go full-time with LINSEED, finding a permanent space in Shanghai's French Concession.

During West Bund Art & Design and ART021, you'll host a collaborative exhibition, Reading Stones (7 November–28 December 2023), with the London-based gallery Ginny on Frederick. How did this collaboration come about?

Since studying at Goldsmiths, London has been the city that I've always found myself going back to. Freddie's programme is one I'd followed for a while and I admired his approach as a gallerist. Like me, Freddie started Ginny on Frederick in a very small room, a sandwich shop in fact, and at the time, we were both working with Kiki Xuebing Wang. Kiki introduced us, and when I pitched the idea of a collaborative exhibition, he was very excited to work together in Shanghai.

For the exhibition, we're showing a number of Freddie's artists: Charlotte Edey, Jack O'Brien, and Alexandra Metcalf, and some we decided on together such as Cezary Poniatowski.

Reading Stones is predominantly an exhibition of multimedia works. We want to make this show vibrant and kicking experience. After Covid-19, everyone is looking for renewed energy here in Shanghai, and I hope this show will add to that.

Has Shanghai's art scene bounced back from the pandemic?

There has been some changes. Before Covid-19, Shanghai's market was booming and people would love visiting the city to head to important shows around the city. The local art scene and fairs were booming, and many international galleries had Asian representatives working in Shanghai or Beijing.

Having said that, the difficulties caused by Covid-19 are slowly being resolved, while the patterns of the global art scene are also changing. I feel there were a lot of new collectors, young collectors, who started to collect during the pandemic with a more international perspective. Collectors were looking online, and exchanging view on social media.

How would you describe your programme?

We work with young talent who have caught our eye. Many artists we work are from the Asian diaspora, who share similar cultures and geo-political identities with us, and have been living through a nomadic global experience.

Their work speaks not only from more personal experiences, but also their individualised perception of their surrounding environments.

Compared to the generation that came before them, this younger generation have a more international perspective. They've grown up in a more globalised environment, and as a result, their work is less China-focused and speaks more from personal experiences.

Is there an artist that you have recently discovered that you're excited to work with?

I'm very excited to work with Asami Shoji, a Japanese artist showing in Gestures of Resistance (5 October–25 November 2023), our London group show in collaboration with A.I Gallery.

She recently completed a residency in Georgia, where she created a group of paintings based off her strong intuition about the intricacies of life and spatial existence.

Following the London show, we are looking forward to a few more exciting projects with Shoji in the coming year.

Where do you find your artists?

I follow my instincts. I love to research, and each 'discovery' often leads to another. I am drawn to the weird, and when I find something I like, I can't help to dig up more. Sometimes, I get recommended artist from other artists, curators, or even collectors—I love to discover artists through the eyes of others.

What exhibitions would you recommend visiting?

Rockbund Museum is host to a solo exhibition of the Singapore-based visual artist Shubigi Rao, which was expanded from a film commission. Her art touches on geo-politics and intellectual cultural preservation—topics very relevant in today's turbulent times.

I would also head to Liu Chuang's solo exhibition, Lithium Lake and Island Polyphony (4 November–30 December 2023) at Antenna Space. I have always been fascinated by the narratives that Chuang creates in relation to the depth of China's technological and economic phenomena.

The Zhang Enli exhibition at the Long Museum is another must-see. Zhang is one of my favourite Chinese artists, and one that I referenced a lot when I was in school. I love his strong and wild observations of daily life, his transformations from figurative to abstract, and his painting installations in relation to space.

And among the galleries that the team and myself look to and learn from, I'd head to Gallery Vacancy, as well as our neighbours Capsule Shanghai and BANK.

Where do you like to eat in the city?

While I am not from Shanghai, a couple of local friends once took me to Jesse Restaurant (老吉士) when I first moved to the city. It's delicious, and so now when people ask me for an authentic Shanghainese restaurant, I always recommend this. I've brought many collectors here, and they all love it!

For a drink, I'd recommend Senator Saloon, a cocktail bar a stone's throw from LINSEED. In my opinion, it's the best cocktails in town with the best bar food. I come here for meetings, to hang out with friends, while also spending time alone here too.

An old Shanghai bar, YingYang is a popular hang out among art world types.

As a side project, I have this idea of opening a noodle club: a place where I could share my own noodles while also inviting other chef friends from all over the world. People in art: collectors, artists, gallerists, for example, could recommend chefs, and in turn, the club would become a platform to show talent and enjoy life in a more instinctual way.

Would this be Shanghai's first noodle club?

Yes, I think it would.