Li Tingwei | 2020 Residency
Switzerland | Visual Arts
Dec.8, 2020-Feb.28, 2021 — Visual Arts
Nationality: China
Residency location: Basel
Partner organization: Atelier Mondial
Li Tingwei was born in 1989 in Yantai, China and now based in Shanghai and Berlin. She graduated from Universität der Künste Berlin and had previously studied at Hunter College MFA program and Tongji University. She holds the title of Meisterschuelerin of the Berlin University of Arts.
Recent exhibitions include solo exhibition “Could donut save us from drowning?”at Surplus Space, Wuhan, solo exhibition “Feeling Good?” at J: Gallery, Shanghai. Group exhibitions at Airport Biennale Guangzhou, Sifang Art Museum, Minsheng Art Museum, Taikang Space Beijing, Galerie Gerken Berlin, and Flowers Gallery New York. She is among the Forbes’ 30 Under 30 China 2017 in Art and Style and participated in artist-in-residence programs at the Swatch Art Peace Hotel of Shanghai, Flux Factory New York and Kooshk Residency of Iran.
Working with objects, images, and videos, Tingwei is interested in the phenomenon and core values in contemporary life. By addressing how human consciousness and behavior have been changed in the consumer society, she deals with contemporary issues such as the self-optimization and the “flexible ego” under conditions of marketing. As a kind of artistic research, her work undertakes mental archeology of digital media and its influence on our minds and bodies.
For the residency in Switzerland, Li will start with the idea from roman “mano pantea”-different hand gestures giving blessing, which is an ancient motif art. For the sake of language, nature has joined hands with our bodies. Inspired by an essay of Otl Aicher “greifen und begreifen”, Li plans to make installations and collect observation materials that related to the weather in term of current political concern and tendency. After making the work of “Unhealthy for sensitive groups”, she will continue with the topic of the relationship between weather and human beings. The research from all these directions would come to a new perspective with the presentation of video, photos, and objects.
