Contemporary Cloister

Galerie Urs Meile

Set in Beijing’s burgeoning artist and gallery quarter Caochangdi alongside big-name peers Pekin Fine Arts and Three Shadows, Galerie Urs Meile - like its parent flagship in Lucerne, Switzerland - has made a name for itself showcasing some of the world’s foremost contemporary painters, sculptors, photographers, installation and performance artists. Since its 2005 completion, the modern grey-brick cloister – incidentally designed by one of China’s most celebrated artists, Ai Weiwei – has played host to, amongst others, Belgian conceptual artist Wim Delvoye, French photographer Pierre Gonnord, and local talents painter Qiu Shihua and sculptor Li Zhanyang, not to mention a slew of artists-in-residence.

In keeping with its tradition of fostering emerging Chinese artists, Galerie Urs Meile is currently presenting Beijing-native Shao Fan’s first solo exhibition, titled Appreciation of Oldness: The Paintings of Shao Fan, until January 13. In a precursor to Fan’s retrospective to be held at the National Museum of China during March, more than ten of his latest oil paintings feature in the showcase, which sees the artist exploring aesthetics and peaceful atmospheres driven by animal, landscape and portrait subjects. Running in parallel is an exhibition of two new series of large-scale oil paintings by Xie Nanxing, an artist renowned for his use of innovative and experimental effects, such as the stippled surfaces that appear in this The Second Round With A Whip canvas collection.