APSMUSEUM is honored to announce that the new exhibition Art Within Reach II will be opened to the public on February 25, 2024, as the next phase of the Art Within Reach series. Co-hosted by Art Pioneer Studio and L+MALL in Lujiazui and produced by Robin Wong, the exhibition invites Xu Zidong as the curator.

"Art Within Reach" is a form of contemporary art with the characteristics of irreality, anti-romanticism, and light narrative, yet less grotesque, absurd, or abstract aesthetics. It focuses on the relationship between the artwork and our surroundings. Contemporary artworks are not necessarily to be exhibited in the white cubes. By acknowledging the uncertainty of meaning, it is more concerned with figurative details, material texture, and the tactic of juxtaposition. A stone from the traditional Chinese garden, the insect wings in a glass frame, a cat embedded in the asphalt civilization, a delightful "pregnant" vase, or a dress made of a collage of tiles, are all masterpieces created by contemporary big names across the world.

The boundary between art and life is being challenged. "Art Within Reach", in the Chinese social context, shies away from a grand narration towards everyday life. APSMUSEUM showcases artworks created by artists at home and abroad, including Damien Hirst, Richard Long, Kiki Smith, Zhan Wang, and Zhao Zhao. In this series of exhibitions, Art Within Reach I focuses more on interior environments, while Art Within Reach II steps forward, searching for the relationship between interior and exterior spaces, between family and nature, aiming to fuse contemporary art into daily life with Chinese modern style as always.

As one of the work in this exhibition, Zhou Xiaohu's art video Garden of Earthly Delights will be presented on the screen of the ground floor at the junction of South Pudong Road and Shangcheng Road, L+MALL, Shanghai on 25 February 2024.

Xu Zidong

MA (East China Normal); MA (UCLA); PhD (HKU)
Vice president of Chinese Association for Theory of Literary and Art, Honorary Professor of School of Chinese at University of Hong Kong, Zijiang Chair Professor of East China Normal University, former Head of Department of Chinese at Lingnan University. Prof. Xu has published extensively on modern and contemporary Chinese literature including New Perspectives on Yu Dafu, Collective Memory: Remembering to Forget, Close Readings of Eileen Chang, and Revisiting 20th-century Chinese novels.

Wang Jie

Wang Jie, senior reporter at Shanghai Daily, covering the development of China's contemporary art for more than two decades. Her articles have received wide acclaims in the art community. Now a member of Shanghai Art Critics' Association, she was the spokeslady of the Asia Pacific Region for ShContemporary in 2010 (the city's first overseas art fair).