# Rethinking Contemporary Chinese Art through Artist Residencies / 从艺术驻留重新看中国当代艺术 — Hu Chao

Source: https://www.huchaocurator.com/exhibitions/borrowing-the-shell/curatorial-note/

## English

[Selected curatorial projects](https://www.huchaocurator.com/exhibitions/) / [“Borrowing the Shell”](https://www.huchaocurator.com/exhibitions/borrowing-the-shell/) / Curatorial note

[Exhibition](https://www.huchaocurator.com/exhibitions/borrowing-the-shell/)[Curatorial note](https://www.huchaocurator.com/exhibitions/borrowing-the-shell/curatorial-note/)[Foreword](https://www.huchaocurator.com/exhibitions/borrowing-the-shell/foreword/)[Residency history](https://www.huchaocurator.com/exhibitions/borrowing-the-shell/residency-history/)[Selected works](https://www.huchaocurator.com/exhibitions/borrowing-the-shell/works/)[Installation views](https://www.huchaocurator.com/exhibitions/borrowing-the-shell/gallery/)[Press & media](https://www.huchaocurator.com/exhibitions/borrowing-the-shell/media/)[Visit & contact](https://www.huchaocurator.com/exhibitions/borrowing-the-shell/visit/)[Catalogue PDF ↓](https://www.huchaocurator.com/downloads/shell-exhibition/catalogue-origins-of-artist-residencies-in-china.pdf)

Curatorial note

# Rethinking Contemporary Chinese Art through Artist Residencies

Hu Chao · 2026

EXHIBITION TEXTS

[Curatorial note](https://www.huchaocurator.com/exhibitions/borrowing-the-shell/curatorial-note/)[Residency history](https://www.huchaocurator.com/exhibitions/borrowing-the-shell/residency-history/)[Exhibition foreword](https://www.huchaocurator.com/exhibitions/borrowing-the-shell/foreword/)[Download exhibition catalogue PDF ↓](https://www.huchaocurator.com/downloads/shell-exhibition/catalogue-origins-of-artist-residencies-in-china.pdf)[Download text ↓](https://www.huchaocurator.com/downloads/shell-exhibition/curatorial-note-en.txt)

For decades, histories of contemporary Chinese art have often been told through movements, major exhibitions, biennials, the market, and the moments when artists entered international systems. While preparing Origins of Artist Residencies in China: Another Pathway to Contemporary Chinese Art, I became increasingly interested in another question: beyond the exhibitions and events that have already entered art history, how did artists actually come to know the world?

From the 1980s onward, Chinese artists travelled abroad in growing numbers, while foreign artists increasingly came to China. At first, these exchanges were often personal and scattered: visits, sojourns, exhibitions. By the 1990s, artist residencies began to provide a more organised structure. Artists did not simply visit another place; they stayed for weeks, months, sometimes longer, entering another rhythm of daily life, social relations and artistic work.

The value of residencies to artists does not need to be proven by this exhibition. What interests me is a different question: if such experiences shaped the knowledge, methods and international connections of several generations of artists, why have artist residencies so rarely been discussed as a distinct thread in the history of contemporary Chinese art?

With this question in mind, I began tracing and comparing hundreds of residency programmes in China and abroad, together with international exchange projects, institutional archives and artists’ own experiences. Once these dispersed materials were placed alongside one another, a developmental trajectory gradually became visible.

The framework proposed in this exhibition — Transplantation, Grafting and Mycelium — is not an established classification in art history. It is a working framework that I have drawn from this body of research.

Transplantation asks how a new form of artistic exchange entered China. In the 1990s, cooperation between Australia’s Asialink and Red Gate Gallery enabled Chinese and international artists to move in both directions through organised residency programmes.

Grafting asks what happened after that model arrived. Around 2001, Red Gate established its own long-term residency programme. In Xiamen, CEAC maintained close links with Europe while working through the local cultures, workshops, universities and social resources of southeast China. Residency was no longer simply an imported international model; it began to take forms shaped by particular local conditions.

Mycelium describes the more dispersed developments since around 2009. Platforms such as China Residencies connected programmes that had previously been scattered across the country. At the same time, museums, academies, independent spaces, commercial organisations and artists themselves established residency programmes that appeared, changed, ended, and sometimes continued in new forms.

These three perspectives also reveal different directions in China’s artistic engagement with the world: the early importance of Australia, CEAC’s connections with Europe, and later exchanges with the United States and wider global networks. Yet Australia, Europe and the United States are only three lenses used in this exhibition; they are not a complete map of China’s international artistic exchanges.

Looking closely at the history, the relationship between Chinese art and the world was far broader, more reciprocal and more polycentric than a simple story of “Western influence on China.” Exchanges within Asia, and between China and many other regions, remain to be traced in greater depth.

Origins of Artist Residencies in China is therefore neither a complete history of residencies in China nor an attempt to impose a fixed classification on them. It is an effort to recover a line of inquiry from a large and scattered body of material: to move residency from a single line in an artist’s CV back into the history of contemporary Chinese art, and to ask what different art history might become visible as a result.

## Domestic and International: Knowing Oneself through Elsewhere

Residency, of course, does not necessarily mean crossing a national border.

China is geographically vast. Different regions contain distinct social experiences, local cultures and ways of life, enough in themselves to offer artists unfamiliar and enriching encounters. From Beijing to Xiamen, from cities to the countryside, from academies and independent spaces to artist-run programmes, movement within China can also enrich different artistic minds. Domestic and international residencies are intertwined, and together they form an important part of contemporary Chinese art that deserves renewed attention.

Chen Wenling, an artist in this exhibition, offers one example. In 2004, then based in Xiamen, he came to Beijing through the Red Gate Residency. Looking back on the very different living and artistic environment of Feijiacun, he recalled:

“The depth of Beijing is like its haze and sandstorms — you can never see to the bottom. This city may not nurture the body as Xiamen does, but it nurtures dreams.”

A residency within China could likewise take an artist beyond a familiar radius of life and into another city’s social experience, artistic circles and intellectual environment.

Chen Wenling is only one example. At the end of the exhibition catalogue, and on the Red Gate Gallery website, we have also assembled a list of artist residency programmes across China. It is not complete, nor is it intended as an authoritative directory. Some programmes have ended, some continue, and new ones keep appearing. The list is better understood as a historical cross-section: a partial record of a constantly changing residency landscape in China.

In 1985, Robert Rauschenberg’s exhibition at the National Art Museum of China in Beijing had a powerful impact on many Chinese artists. In the years that followed, Chinese artists moved rapidly towards a wider engagement with the world. Exhibitions, visits, study abroad, residencies and many forms of international collaboration opened windows in different directions.

Artist residency offers a more modest reminder as well. Knowing the world is not only a matter of seeing more artworks or taking part in more exhibitions. It can mean staying in an unfamiliar place, entering its everyday life, living among different people, and reconsidering one’s own position within another cultural and social environment. That unfamiliar place may be overseas, but it may also be another city or another rural region within China.

To know another country or another place in depth does not mean abandoning oneself. Distance can, on the contrary, make the self more visible.

In this sense, “borrowing the shell” is ultimately not about borrowing another identity, but about using another environment to understand oneself anew. The world keeps changing; what an artist may be able to keep is the courage to enter unfamiliar places, and an open mind still willing to understand others.

Hu Chao · October 2026

[Related published version · Artron (Chinese) ↗](https://m-news.artron.net/news/20261010/n2093981.html)

## Image use & credits

Images may be reproduced free of charge for editorial coverage of the exhibition, provided the specified credits are retained.

Artwork images: Courtesy of Red Gate Gallery.

Installation photographs (excluding opening views): Photo: Zhang Guozhong. Courtesy of Hu Chao.

Artwork copyright remains with the respective artists and rights holders. Copyright in the installation photographs (excluding opening views) belongs to Hu Chao. Opening-view credits are listed separately; please contact Hu Chao for reproduction enquiries.

[Bilingual image captions CSV ↓](https://www.huchaocurator.com/downloads/shell-exhibition/image-captions.csv)

GALLERY & RELATED CHANNELS

This project archive brings together Hu Chao’s curatorial research, the exhibition foreword, works and installation views. See the gallery’s channels for its announcements and visitor updates.

[Red Gate Gallery exhibition link](http://redgategallery.com/exhibitions/origins-of-artist-residencies-in-china/)[Red Gate Gallery · exhibition archive](https://redgategallery.com/category/exhibitions/past-exhibition/)[WeChat exhibition announcement](https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/nj66l7sie7GpGiTNcvHg0A)[Red Gate Gallery · WeChat post](https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/VgR8BZMSK3L5910GM1ctQA)[Red Gate Gallery · opening review](https://redgategallery.com/news/opening-review-origins-of-artist-residencies-in-china/)[Red Gate Gallery website](https://redgategallery.com/)

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## 中文

[主要策展](https://www.huchaocurator.com/exhibitions/) / [《借壳》](https://www.huchaocurator.com/exhibitions/borrowing-the-shell/) / 策展人语

[展览详情](https://www.huchaocurator.com/exhibitions/borrowing-the-shell/)[策展人语](https://www.huchaocurator.com/exhibitions/borrowing-the-shell/curatorial-note/)[展览前言](https://www.huchaocurator.com/exhibitions/borrowing-the-shell/foreword/)[驻留历史](https://www.huchaocurator.com/exhibitions/borrowing-the-shell/residency-history/)[精选作品](https://www.huchaocurator.com/exhibitions/borrowing-the-shell/works/)[展览现场](https://www.huchaocurator.com/exhibitions/borrowing-the-shell/gallery/)[媒体资料](https://www.huchaocurator.com/exhibitions/borrowing-the-shell/media/)[参观与联系](https://www.huchaocurator.com/exhibitions/borrowing-the-shell/visit/)[图册 PDF ↓](https://www.huchaocurator.com/downloads/shell-exhibition/catalogue-origins-of-artist-residencies-in-china.pdf)

策展人语

# 从艺术驻留重新看中国当代艺术

胡超 · 2026

展览文本

[策展人语](https://www.huchaocurator.com/exhibitions/borrowing-the-shell/curatorial-note/)[驻留历史](https://www.huchaocurator.com/exhibitions/borrowing-the-shell/residency-history/)[展览前言](https://www.huchaocurator.com/exhibitions/borrowing-the-shell/foreword/)[下载展览图册 PDF ↓](https://www.huchaocurator.com/downloads/shell-exhibition/catalogue-origins-of-artist-residencies-in-china.pdf)[下载文章文字 ↓](https://www.huchaocurator.com/downloads/shell-exhibition/curatorial-note-zh.txt)

过去几十年，我们习惯通过艺术运动、重要展览、双年展、市场以及艺术家进入国际体系的节点来讲述中国当代艺术史。但在准备《借壳——驻留计划溯源与中国当代艺术进程》的过程中，我越来越关注另一个问题：在那些已经进入艺术史的展览和事件之外，艺术家究竟是怎样认识世界的？

20世纪80年代，中国艺术家开始越来越多地走出国门，外国艺术家也陆续来到中国。最初的往来往往是个人的、零散的：有访问，有旅居，有展览。到了90年代，艺术家驻留开始以更有组织的方式进入中国。艺术家不只是去另一个地方看一看，而是住下来，工作几周、几个月甚至更久，进入另一种日常生活、社会关系和艺术环境。

驻留对艺术家的意义，并不需要这个展览来证明。真正吸引我的是另一个问题：如果这种经验持续影响了几代艺术家的知识、方法和国际联系，为什么艺术驻留在中国当代艺术史的书写中，却很少被作为一条独立的线索来讨论？

带着这个问题，我开始追踪和比较数百个中国及海外的艺术家驻留计划、国际交流项目、机构档案和艺术家经历。当许多原本彼此分散的材料被放到一起，一条发展脉络逐渐显现出来。

《借壳》所提出的“移植—嫁接—菌丝网络”（Transplantation—Grafting—Mycelium），并不是既有艺术史中的分类，而是我在这项研究中从大量材料里归纳出来的一组工作框架。

“移植”关注一种新的艺术交流机制如何进入中国。20世纪90年代，澳大利亚 Asialink 与红门画廊的合作，使中外艺术家开始通过有组织的驻留实现双向流动。

“嫁接”追问进入之后发生了什么。2001年前后，红门建立自己的长期驻留项目；厦门 CEAC 则一面连接欧洲，一面进入中国东南的地方文化、工坊、大学和社会资源。驻留不再只是输入一种国际模式，而开始在不同的地方条件中长出自己的形态。

“菌丝网络”关注的是2009年以来更加分散的变化。China Residencies 等平台把原本散落各处的驻留项目连接起来；与此同时，美术馆、学院、独立空间、商业机构以及艺术家自己建立的驻留计划不断出现、转型、停止，又以新的方式继续生长。

这三个角度也恰好折射出中国当代艺术与世界发生联系的不同方向：早期与澳大利亚的交流，CEAC 所连接的欧洲，以及后来与美国和更广泛全球网络之间日益复杂的往来。

但澳大利亚、欧洲和美国只是本展览选择的三个观察面，并不是中国艺术国际交流的全部地图。回到具体历史便会发现，中国艺术界与世界的联系，远比“西方影响中国”这样一条单线叙事更加广泛、双向而多中心。亚洲内部、中国与其他地区之间，还有许多关系等待继续追踪。

因此，《借壳》不是一部完整的中国艺术驻留史，也不是要给所有驻留项目建立一个固定分类。它更像一次从大量材料中寻找线索的尝试：把驻留从艺术家个人履历中的一行经历重新放回中国当代艺术发展的内部，看看我们是否会因此看见另一种艺术史。

## 国内与国际：在陌生之地重新认识自己

当然，驻留并不意味着一定要跨越国界。

中国地域辽阔，不同地区之间的社会经验、地方文化和生活方式，本身就足以为艺术家提供陌生而丰富的经验。从北京到厦门，从城市到乡村，从学院、民间空间到艺术家自建的驻留项目，国内的移动同样能够丰富不同的艺术心灵。国际与国内的驻留实践彼此交织，共同成为中国当代艺术进程中值得重新认识的重要一环。

本展览中的陈文令就是一个例子。2004年，这位当时生活在厦门的艺术家通过红门驻留来到北京。面对费家村与厦门截然不同的生活和艺术环境，他后来回忆：

“北京的深度就像雾霾天和沙尘暴一样，让你几眼都看不到底。这里确实没有厦门养人，但很养人的梦想。”

一次国内驻留，同样可以让艺术家离开熟悉的生活半径，进入另一座城市的社会经验、艺术圈层和思想环境。

陈文令只是其中一例。展览图册末尾以及红门画廊网站还整理了一份中国各地艺术驻留计划的名单。它未必完整，也无意成为一份权威名录。一些项目已经停止，一些仍在继续，还有新的项目不断出现。这份名单更像一张历史截面，希望为不断变化的中国艺术驻留实践，留下一页侧影。

1985年，劳森伯格在北京中国美术馆的展览曾震动许多中国艺术家。此后，中国艺术家观看世界、走向世界的脚步迅速加快。展览、访问、留学、驻留以及各种国际合作，从不同方向打开了通往外部世界的窗口。

艺术驻留提醒我们的，也许还有一件更朴素的事：认识世界，并不只是看见更多作品、参加更多展览，而是愿意在一个陌生的地方住下来，进入当地的日常生活，与不同的人相处，在另一种文化和社会环境中重新认识自己的位置。这个陌生之地可以在海外，也可以就在中国的另一座城市、另一片乡村。

深入了解异国与异地，并不意味着放弃自身。恰恰相反，距离有时使我们更清楚地看见自己。

“借壳”最终不是借来另一个身份，而是借助另一种环境重新认识自己。世界不断变化，艺术家能够长久拥有的，也许正是进入陌生之地的勇气，以及一颗仍然愿意理解他人的开放之心。

胡超 · 2026年10月

[相关发表版本 · 雅昌艺术网 ↗](https://m-news.artron.net/news/20261010/n2093981.html)

## 图片使用与署名

图片可免费用于本展览的新闻与编辑报道，使用时须保留指定署名。

作品图片由红门画廊提供。

展厅照片（不含开幕现场）：张国钟 摄影，胡超 提供。

作品版权归各艺术家及相关权利人所有。展厅照片（不含开幕现场）版权归胡超所有。开幕现场图片另列署名，转载事宜请联系胡超。

[中英文图片图注 CSV ↓](https://www.huchaocurator.com/downloads/shell-exhibition/image-captions.csv)

画廊与相关发布

这里汇集胡超的策展研究、展览前言、作品与现场资料。画廊的展讯与参观安排，也可通过以下官方渠道查看。

[红门画廊展览链接](http://redgategallery.com/exhibitions/origins-of-artist-residencies-in-china/)[红门画廊 · 展览档案](https://redgategallery.com/category/exhibitions/past-exhibition/)[微信展览发布](https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/nj66l7sie7GpGiTNcvHg0A)[红门画廊 · 微信推文](https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/VgR8BZMSK3L5910GM1ctQA)[红门画廊 · 开幕回顾](https://redgategallery.com/news/opening-review-origins-of-artist-residencies-in-china/)[红门画廊官网](https://redgategallery.com/)

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