THE CLOUD CATCHER
Perrotin Shanghai is pleased to present The Cloud Catcher, the first group exhibition of 2025, curated by Evonne Jiawei Yuan.
January 9 - March 1, 2025
Participating artists include: Anna-Eva Bergman, Cao Taiping, Chen Ruofan, Kristy Chan, Mathilde Denize, Laurent Grasso, Thilo Heinzmann, Effie Wanyi Li, Liang Hao, Ma Lingli, James Prapaithong, Gabriel Rico, Sigrid Sandström, Shan Yuhan, Kaifan Wang, Kiki Xuebing Wang, Xie Qi and Xu Suyi.
In this evocative work accomplished more than half a century ago, Baudelaire employs the metaphor of clouds to symbolize a lost or departed “homeland.” Emphasizing how clouds in themselves transcend geographical boundaries and limitations, he delves into the complexities of the human psyche and explores the ethereal nature of existence and the transient essence of identity. The point of Baudelaire’s writing is “to capture the beauty of life in the modern city” that arises from “melancholy with no apparent cause” yet “characterized by a disgust with everything.” Driven by this idea, the 18 artists from different generations and backgrounds featured in the exhibition, 11 of whom collaborate with Perrotin for the first time were born in the 1980s to 1990s across China and Asia, hereby navigate the fluidity of self-positioning through their unique approaches to painting, which trespass the binary between figuration and abstraction with a motivated gesture of “catching clouds.”
On the one hand, their painting practices engage with the nuanced layers of transcultural and post-national experiences, reflecting a rich tapestry of narratives that respond to the disrupted matrix of identity categories that often surround diaspora. Such an inquiry encompasses a wide range of themes, including migration and displacement, transgression and emotional transference, as well as various media that articulate these trajectories.
This investigation is particularly relevant in today’s chaos introduced by the shadow of the neoliberal order, which further contributes to a process of retribalization. The Cloud Catcher thus invites the viewer to reflect on the ephemeral reveries of belonging and the intricacies of exchange in a rapidly changing world.