Guanyu Xu Fine Print

HL-07252014-1127202, 2021

Archival inkjet print, 11x13.75" image on 13x15.75" paper

Edition of 50, signed and numbered by the artist

Frame not included

Resident Aliens presents physical photographic installations within immigrants’ interior spaces to examine their personal histories and complex experiences. Through photographing the layered images of immigrants’ interior spaces, belongings, personal photo archives, and pictures of places they captured in this world, the project blurs the boundaries between the familiar and foreignness, private and public, belonging and alienation. The project is situated between photography, installation, and performance, constructing layered images of identity, personal history, and the built environment. Since 2020, Xu has engaged in collaborations with over forty individuals residing in Chicago, East Lansing, New York, Hong Kong, Beijing, Nanjing, and Shanghai. Resident Aliens is particularly meaningful as we face the rise of neo-nationalism and xenophobia across the globe.

徐冠宇 Guanyu Xu (b. 1993, Beijing) is an artist currently based in Chicago and Beijing. Influenced by the production of hegemonic ideology in American visual culture and his upbringing in Beijing, his practice extends from examining the production of power in image culture to the question of personal freedom and its relationship to political regimes. Xu negotiates this from his perspective as a Chinese gay man and an immigrant in the US.

He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and has been an artist-in-residence at Light Work, Pioneer Works, and Swatch Art Peace Hotel. His works have been exhibited and screened internationally, including at the Sharjah Art Foundation, UAE; the Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge; International Center of Photography, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing; Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland; and the 36th Kasseler Dokfest, Germany. His work can be found in the collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, and New Orleans Museum of Art, among others.