This exhibition took place at our previous [Location closed] Eastcastle St location.

Returning to Gallery Weekend Beijing after Dream of the Red Chamber featuring Sophie von Hellermann and Rirkrit Tiravanija in 2021, Pilar Corrias presents Here or there!–showcasing recent works by Peppi Bottrop, Cui Jie and Rirkrit Tiravanija. The paintings, sculptures and conceptual pieces illustrate worldly views created by artists from three different generations and regions. This exhibition encourages the audience to consider in solidarity the events and factors that separate a local reality from another in a post-globalisation era.

Peppi Bottrop's paintings depict one of the most pressing issues of our time: the ongoing struggle of structural transformation. Inspired by the reality of the Ruhr district, Europe's largest and once most prosperous coal-mining region, Bottrop makes scrawling coal marks as he negotiates space, tracing grid structures that remind one of the German rust belt's obsolete order. He turns canvases into windows out onto unknown terrain, where remnants of an industrial past are churned up by natural powers and entangled in an intriguing symbiosis.

Cui Jie's series of sculptural works is an ambitious move towards critiquing architectural history by crafting buildings and re-scaling the relationship between men and man-made. Her sculptures often refer to buildings and monuments found in cities such as Shanghai and Hangzhou, whilst being attentive to international modern legacies. Thematically and formally speaking, the 3D-printed works are in stark contrast to Bottrop's paintings, opening a gap through which heterogeneous visions and perspectives are valued.

Rirkrit Tiravanija's highly conceptual works speak by leaving room for other voices. Reduced to fundamental syntax forms, the artist's ambivalent yet certain statements propose that together we should stop being silent. Universal in nature, Tiravanija's works invite the audience to make their statements in their own language. Grouping together three distinct bodies of work that pertain to diverse realities and urgency, "Here or there!" encourages the audience to take their own sense of belonging and here-ness as a starting point and consider issues here and there. Living in either the metropolis of Beijing, the magnificent Shanghai, or the old coal-mining town in Bottrop, one can always be concerned with events and developments elsewhere, asking important questions, and working on critical projects that give solidarity a chance.

Peppi Bottrop (b. 1986 Bottrop, Germany) lives and works in Cologne, Germany. He graduated as Meisterschüler from the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in 2014, where he studied under Albert Oehlen, Andreas Schulze and Jutta Koether. His work has been the subject of a number of important solo and group exhibitions including: Jungle Rapture, Pilar Corrias, London (2021); La vista y el tacto (ca. 1929-30), Centro Federico García Lorca, Granada (2021); Jetzt! Junge Malerei in Deutschland, Kunstmuseum Bonn, Museum Wiesbaden, and Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz (2019); Line Packers (with Albert Oehlen), Marciano Art Foundation, Los Angeles (2018); Hovel, Kunstverein Heppenheim, Heppenheim (2016); Fasi Lunari, Fondazione Carriero, Milan (2016); and You Are Missing A Lot Of Beautiful Shit (with Violet Dennison), Open Forum, Berlin and Museum Quadrat, Bottrop (2014).

Cui Jie (b. 1983 Shanghai, China) creates paintings which explore the heterogeneous perspectives in various fields and geopolitical contexts by incorporating diverse layers. For the artist, the cities she depicts in her works are closely associated with her personal history: one can identify influences as vast as Bauhaus principles, ideologies of Chinese propaganda art, Soviet communist aesthetics, or the Japanese Metabolism architectural movement, among others. In rendering specific cities, architectures and landscapes, Cui explores the embedded histories of perspectives, and shrewdly proposes the political meanings of distance, angles and time. Recent solo exhibitions include: New Model Village, Focal Point Gallery, Southend-on-Sea (2022); Cui Jie: From Pavilion to Space Station, Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art, Manchester (2019–2020); The Peak Tower, Pilar Corrias, London (2019); To Make a Good Chair, Antenna Space, Shanghai (2019); The Enormous Space, OCAT Contemporary Art Terminal, Shenzhen (2018); Latter, Former, mother's tankstation, Dublin (2016); and Cui Jie, START Gallery, Jaffa (2015). Her work has been included in recent group shows such as Centre Pompidou-Metz, Metz (2021); Para Site, Hong Kong (2021); 12^th Taipei Biennial, Taipei (2020); Para Site, Hong Kong (2019); Guangdong Time Museum, Guangdong (2018); MoMa PS1, New York (2017); Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing (2017); Metro Pictures, New York (2017); Cass Sculpture Foundation, Sussex (2016); K11, Hong Kong and Shanghai (2016); Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing (2015); Tampa Museum of Art, Florida (2014); Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg (2014); Oklahoma City Museum of Art (2014) and Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai (2012).

Rirkrit Tiravanija (b. 1961 Buenos Aires, Argentina) is widely recognised as one of the most influential artists of his generation. His practice defies media-based description combining traditional object making, public and private performances, teaching, and other forms of public service and social action. Rirkrit Tiravanija studied at the Ontario College of Art, Toronto, the Banff Center School of Fine Arts, Canada, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Whitney Independent Study Program, New York. He has exhibited at museums and galleries worldwide. Major solo shows include: Cultuurcentrum Strombeek, Grimbergen (2022); ICA, London (2019); Hirschhorn Smithsonian, Washington (2019); National Gallery Singapore (2018); Museumplein, Amsterdam (2016); YBCA, San Francisco (2015); Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Fort Worth, Texas (2014); Park Avenue Armory, New York (2013); Bonnierskonsthall, Stockholm (2011); Kunsthalle Bielefield (2010); Museé de la Ville de Paris (2005); Museum Bojmans Van Beuningen (2004); Chiang Mai University Art Museum (2004); Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art in Oslo (2002); Los Angeles County Museum of Art (1999); and Museum of Modern Art, New York (1997). Tiravanija's work has been recognised with numerous prestigious awards including the Benesse by the Naoshima Contemporary Art Museum in Japan and the Smithsonian American Art Museum's Lucelia Artist Award, the Hugo Boss Prize from the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York (2004) and the 2010 Absolut Art Award. Tiravanija is on the faculty of the School of Visual Arts at Columbia University, and is a founding member and curator of Utopia Station, a collective project of artists, art historians, and curators. Tiravanija is also President of an educational-ecological project known as The Land Foundation, located in Chiang Mai, Thailand, and is part of a collective alternative space called VER located in Bangkok where he maintains his primary residence and studio.

Press release courtesy Eastcastle Street.