Vanguard Gallery

Launched in 2008, Vanguard Gallery’s Gas Station series provides a platform for provoking the potential and imagination of young artists, from which sparks, with new energy being continuously input, burst out not only between artists but also between the gallery and artists. Vanguard Gallery will present “Gas Station Ⅹ” on 6 July, showcasing recent works by Chinese artists Li Xianglong, Joy Li, and Xia Han.

The tenth presentation of the Gas Station project places the focus on artists born in the 1990s. As a generation that grew up alongside electronic products, the internet is an inseparable ideology, a decentralized mode of thinking, and an irreversible cognition for them. When the virtual world presented by screens and digital interfaces alters our tangible existence like invisible cyber limbs, this generation autonomously embraces the virtual landscape created by the internet and seamlessly transform it into reality. Contrary to urban prophecies, the senses of the younger generation are not numbed by the presence of the internet; instead, their neurons thrive in the void, capturing messages from electromagnetic waves and translating the flux into a distinct artistic language.

Li Xianglong’s work involves the appropriation of symbols to design and adapt social events and daily life, focusing on the cultural dislocation and fragmentation of information brought about by modern communication methods such as pop culture and internet images. His works, which include paintings, videos, and 3D model animations, reconstruct a kind of observation and reflection that lies outside mainstream language through seemingly playful and absurd images.

Joy Li’s creations span various media, including sculpture, performance, theater, music, and video, exploring relationships and boundaries between different individuals, as well as between individuals and collectives in society. Centered on sculpture and performance, Joy Li reshapes body and space through the dramatic effect of “distancing,” allowing the audience to experience a dual sense of intimacy and unfamiliarity with everyday objects such as light, hair, and water droplets.

Xia Han’s work mainly utilizes game engines and cinemagraphs, focusing on the discussion of consumer culture, human rights, and the ethics of technology. His works amplify, deconstruct, and reconstruct details of reality, using imagery and metaphors to create apparently strange virtual landscapes, often with a pessimistic tone. Currently, he is using video games as an index for his research on their unique language and as a communication medium.

About the artists
Li Xianglong

Li Xianglong was born in 1995 in Huangshi, China. He currently lives in Brooklyn, New York. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree from the Illustrated Book Studio of the China Central Academy of Fine Arts and obtained his Master of Fine Arts degree from the School of Visual Arts in New York.

His work remixes material from pop culture, internet imagery, philosophical texts, and 3D models; devising and reformulating explorations of ruins, social events, and everyday life. The artist’s language of painting is rife with morbid jokes, cultural mistranslations, and mockery of a burnt-out society, thus revealing the fragmented morality behind racism and office abuse.

Recent solo/two-person exhibitions:”Gas Station X”, Vanguard gallery, Shanghai, China (2024); “East Hollywood”, SNAP, Shanghai, China(2023); “Dark Cybercafe”, Clubclub, Wuhan, China(2021); “Stay home, make your contribution to the society”, Latitude Gallery, New York, United States(2021).

Selected group exhibitions: “Dark sky park section behemoth”, Shan Shang Art Space, Xiamen, China(2024); “Echoes of Home “(A Retrospective Exhibition of Li Tang Community), RIVVA Gallery, New York, United States(2023); “Extensive Records of The TaiPing Era”, Moordn Art, Foshan, China(2023); “Winter Salon\pin·up Exhibition”, iidrr Gallery, New York, United States(2023); “The Terminal”, SNAP, Shanghai, China(2021); “Double Trouble”, VillageOneArt, New York, United States(2021); “Life on Land”, ETHBarcelona, Barcelona, Spain(2021); “Dare To…”, Latitude Gallery, New York, United States(2022).

Joy Li

Joy Li was born in 1999 in Gansu, China. She currently lives and works in Shenzhen, China. She obtained her BFA degree in Interdisciplinary Sculpture with a Theater minor at Maryland Institute College of Art in 2021. She will be attending MFA Sculpture program at Yale School of Art in 2024.

Her works include sculpture, performance art, theater, video, and music, exploring the tension of interactions between objects, emotions, and relationships. In her works, she reinterprets objects and bodies to magnify the allure and danger inherent in everyday items, allowing the audience to re-experience and interact familiar things in unfamiliar ways.

Recent solo exhibitions/projects: “Gas Station X”, Vanguard gallery, Shanghai, China (2024); “Icarus’ Wings”, Guangdong Times Museum, Guangzhou, China(2024); “Green Water”, LINSEED, Shanghai, China(2023); “Golden Lines and White Lightings”, Aranya, Chengde, China(2023); “Salomé”, 33ml OFFSPACE, Shanghai, China(2022); “Collective Dreaming”, BBOX, Baltimore, UK(2020).

Selected group exhibitions: “Open the Door”, Gallery func, Shanghai, China(2024); “At the beginning, you find nothing there”, Petitree, Shenzhen, China(2024); “Embodies Rituals”, Guangdong Times Museum, Guangzhou, China(2024); “After Human: Marks of the Beasts”, Tomorrow Maybe, Hong Kong, China(2024); “The Nostalgic Collection”, Tree Art Museum, Beijing, China(2024); “moments that home came into establishment”, Third Street Gallery, Shanghai, China(2023); “Tie Up”, Mugyewon, LINSEED, Seoul, South Korea(2023).

Xia Han

Xia Han was born in Shanghai in 1993. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts from East China Normal University and an Honors Master’s degree in Fine Arts from Chelsea College of Arts. He currently lives and works in Shanghai and online.

Xia Han’s artistic endeavors revolve around the realms of computer games, consumer culture, and the ethical implications of technology. His creative practice predominantly employs game engines and video as the primary mediums for artistic expression. He treats the game scene as a stage, and the audience as characters to build a virtual landscape theater of utopia and ruins, desire and loss, mostly in pessimistic colors. Presently, Han conducts research and exploration, utilizing video games as a medium for communication and as a means to delve into the intricacies of their distinctive language.

Recent solo/two-person exhibitions: “Gas Station X”, Vanguard gallery, Shanghai, China (2024); “The Sweat of Arabica”, WS GALLERY X ShanghART, Shanghai, China (2023); “Technologic”, 33ml offspace, Shanghai, China (2023).

Selected group exhibitions: “Erotic Codex”, Honor Fraser Gallery, Los Angeles, USA (2024); “Eros Randomizer”, Nan Ke Gallery, Shanghai, China (2023); “A Real Engine”, Taipei Digital Art Center, Taiwan, China (2023); “Magician and Hound”, 609 Space, Shanghai, China(2022); “Racing Beyond”, West Bund Art Center, Shanghai, China(2022); “Crystal Hour”, Thetis S.p.A – La Tesa 105, Venice, Italy (2022); “FILE Electronic Language International Festival”, Centro Cultural FIESP, São Paulo, Brazilian(2022); “Vertical Take-off”, The Galaxy museum of Contemporary Art, Chongqing, China(2021).