UCCA, China’s Most Ambitious Contemporary Art Museum, Announces 2022 Exhibitions

Henri Matisse, Maria Lassnig, and Thomas Demand will receive their first institutional solo shows in China as part of UCCA's 14 exhibitions across three locations.

The UCCA Center for Contemporary Art (UCCA) has announced its exhibitions programme for 2022. In total, 14 exhibitions will be held across UCCA's original Beijing location, UCCA Dune, which opened by the beach in Beidaihe in 2018, and UCCA Edge, which launched in Shanghai in May this year.

Three artists will receive their first institutional solo shows in China with the museum next year. They are: Modernist master Henri Matisse (UCCA Beijing, 26 March to 26 June, and UCCA Edge, 16 July to 16 October), Austrian 'body awareness' painter Maria Lassnig (UCCA Beijing, 20 August to 27 November) and Thomas Demand (UCCA Edge 2 April to 19 June), who constructs and photographs interiors made of paper and cardboard.

Other international artists with solo exhibitions in the 2022 programme include Geof Oppenheimer (UCCA Beijing, 30 April to 31 July) and Monira Al Qadiri (UCCA Dune, 3 July to 9 October), both of whom feature in the 2021 Diriyah Biennial, which is curated by UCCA Director Philip Tinari.

The Chinese contemporary artists with solo shows at UCCA are realist painter Liu Xiaodong (UCCA Beijing 15 January to 10 April), filmmaker and photographer Yang Fudong (UCCA Beijing, 26 November 2022 to 26 February 2023), and emerging sculptor Zhang Ruyi (UCCA Beijing, 30 April to 31 July).

Five group shows are also planned.

Somewhere Downtown at UCCA Beijing (30 July to 23 October) looks at the impact of artists in 1980s New York such as Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat. The show is curated by critic Carlo McCormick, author of The Downtown Book: The New York Art Scene, 1974–1984 (2006), and UCCA Curator-at-Large Peter Eleey, who recently joined the museum from MoMA PS1.

Liquid Ground (UCCA Dune, 20 March to 12 June) is a collaboration with influential Hong Kong art space Para Site on ecological issues, while Undercurrents (UCCA Dune, 30 October 2022 to 12 March 2023) explores the liquid properties of sound and the ocean as a medium for cultural transmission.

Sailing Through the Constellations (UCCA Edge, 12 November 2022 to 12 February 2023) is a conversation among young Chinese artists today, while Slide / Show (UCCA Beijing, 17 December 2022 to 5 March 2023) explores the history of projected art photography after Mao. —[O]