Overview
Hu Xiangcheng: Where the Line Leads
He Art Museum is pleased to present “Where the Line Leads,” the first solo exhibition of Chinese artist Hu Xiangcheng in the Lingnan region. Focusing on his eponymous Lines painting series and a suite of whimsical wooden sculptures, the exhibition traces the artist’s boundless creative energy through the threads that run throughout his practice.
The lines in a painting do not exist in reality. Hu Xiangcheng thus makes the line itself his subject, shaping it roughly with thick paint, pushing it into three-dimensional space through techniques of smearing, carving, and squeezing, and embracing its painterly transformation—traces of flow, solidification, and cracking. Direct, decisive, obstinate, and endlessly experimental, his gestures carry the efficiency of mechanical drafting while appearing almost like unconscious, spirit-guided strokes. With a childlike tenacity, he confronts the revolution in productivity brought by artificial intelligence, and interrogates the void within excessive data. He believes that the transcendence of an artist lies in lifelong experimentation, and constantly pushes the boundaries of imagination.
Hu Xiangcheng has engaged with diverse social and cultural contexts in his own distinct way. From his teenage years—apprenticing in a factory, doing wood modeling, sand casting, and metal casting—to his studies at art academies, his fieldwork in Africa, and over a decade of rural construction, he moves freely between art, craft, social practice, and cultural research. A career so varied as to defy categorization, challenging audiences and researchers alike, is the very source of his vitality. For Hu, wood, through which humanity first mastered smelting, is the ladder toward industrial civilization, and also the sculptural medium he first encountered. A suite of wood sculptures presented in this exhibition serves as mediator and vessel between carbon-based life and mechanical civilization, embodying his inquiries into the unknown and his primal yearning for a leap forward.
Exhibition Information
Title: Where the Line Leads
Dates: November 21, 2026 - March 7, 2027
Venue: He Art Museum
Opening Hours: Monday–Sunday, 10:00–18:00 (last admission at 17:30)
About HEM
Located in Shunde, Foshan, Guangdong, He Art Museum (HEM) is a non-profit private art museum, focusing on modern and contemporary culture and art with an international scope. As one of the first pet-friendly museums in China, HEM is dedicated to integrating art into the daily lives of community members, aiming to create an open and inclusive community art museum.
Follow He Art Museum
WeChat: 和美术馆 HEM Weibo: 和美术馆 HEM
rednote：HEM 和美术馆 Instagram：@hemartmuseum
Website: http://hem.org/ Press Inquiries: press@hem.org
He Art Museum is pleased to present “Where the Line Leads,” the first solo exhibition of Chinese artist Hu Xiangcheng in the Lingnan region. Focusing on his eponymous Lines painting series and a suite of whimsical wooden sculptures, the exhibition traces the artist’s boundless creative energy through the threads that run throughout his practice.
The lines in a painting do not exist in reality. Hu Xiangcheng thus makes the line itself his subject, shaping it roughly with thick paint, pushing it into three-dimensional space through techniques of smearing, carving, and squeezing, and embracing its painterly transformation—traces of flow, solidification, and cracking. Direct, decisive, obstinate, and endlessly experimental, his gestures carry the efficiency of mechanical drafting while appearing almost like unconscious, spirit-guided strokes. With a childlike tenacity, he confronts the revolution in productivity brought by artificial intelligence, and interrogates the void within excessive data. He believes that the transcendence of an artist lies in lifelong experimentation, and constantly pushes the boundaries of imagination.
Hu Xiangcheng has engaged with diverse social and cultural contexts in his own distinct way. From his teenage years—apprenticing in a factory, doing wood modeling, sand casting, and metal casting—to his studies at art academies, his fieldwork in Africa, and over a decade of rural construction, he moves freely between art, craft, social practice, and cultural research. A career so varied as to defy categorization, challenging audiences and researchers alike, is the very source of his vitality. For Hu, wood, through which humanity first mastered smelting, is the ladder toward industrial civilization, and also the sculptural medium he first encountered. A suite of wood sculptures presented in this exhibition serves as mediator and vessel between carbon-based life and mechanical civilization, embodying his inquiries into the unknown and his primal yearning for a leap forward.
Exhibition Information
Title: Where the Line Leads
Dates: November 21, 2026 - March 7, 2027
Venue: He Art Museum
Opening Hours: Monday–Sunday, 10:00–18:00 (last admission at 17:30)
About HEM
Located in Shunde, Foshan, Guangdong, He Art Museum (HEM) is a non-profit private art museum, focusing on modern and contemporary culture and art with an international scope. As one of the first pet-friendly museums in China, HEM is dedicated to integrating art into the daily lives of community members, aiming to create an open and inclusive community art museum.
Follow He Art Museum
WeChat: 和美术馆 HEM Weibo: 和美术馆 HEM
rednote：HEM 和美术馆 Instagram：@hemartmuseum
Website: http://hem.org/ Press Inquiries: press@hem.org