Exhibitions

Walking in the Sun — Ai Jing Art Exhibition 2026

"The phrase Walking in the Sun was inspired by a work by Foucault. Its general idea is this: all questions may find their answers through walking in the sun."

— Ai Jing

*The exhibition consists of three sections, an artist timeline, and a thematic short film.

Section One: My Mom and My Hometown

Introduction

"Everyone is able to find in the history of his homeland something that will forever make him proud. To understand and preserve these precious things is the inescapable responsibility of every individual."

— Jacob Burckhardt

The works in this gallery begin with personal narrative: my mother, my hometown, and the memories of childhood—the open fields where I once played, the running as I chased dragonflies, the closeness to nature, and those memories of color and light. The works Girl and Swing and My Mom and My Hometown are important pieces and threads within this constellation of memory.

The other works form a collection of major pieces that have been shown in my solo exhibitions both in China and abroad over the past decade or so, including the I Love Color series, the Mr. R series, and the Walking in the Sun series. Also included is the installation My Hometown, which was shown in my 2012 solo exhibition I LOVE AIJING at the National Museum of China. It is a video work reinstalled in a discarded boiler once used in our studio, recording the everyday life of my parents as well as the process through which they helped me complete the installation My Mom and My Hometown. The installation The Story of Yanfen Street was previously exhibited in 2014 in my solo exhibition Ai Jing's Love at the China Art Museum in Shanghai. Inside this Beijing-brand television set produced in the 1960s, the image of a little girl standing in front of her home and singing is none other than my childhood self.

At the end of this section, we push these emotional narratives toward a "climax." These emotional narratives, together with the memories of childhood, have already taken shape as a presentation of color. Black soil transported from Northeast China is spread across the walls of the exhibition space, while the I Love Color works hanging there project memories of the Northeast through the light and shadow of "the setting sun"—my hometown, cornfields, labor, and harvest.

The I Love Color series is built upon the repeated writing, smearing, and layering of the word "LOVE." It is the only series that I have continued to cultivate deeply over a long period of time.

From this series emerged several other bodies of paintings, such as the Mr. R series and the Walking in the Sun series. Within this endless repetition, almost like chanting sutras every day, what appears monotonous does not bring me boredom, but rather constant new discoveries and possibilities, almost in the way that "One gives birth to Two, Two gives birth to Three, and Three gives birth to all things." What this process of practice has brought me is the experience of cycles and recurrence, overturning and rebuilding, fear and anticipation toward the unknown, and the formation and deepening of courage.

The video work My Mom and My Hometown was filmed in 2012, and was first presented in my solo exhibition at the National Museum of China. In this 25-minute documentary, the Shenyang of that time is faithfully recorded. My mother led my second and youngest aunts, our neighbors, my elementary and middle school classmates, and their family members—a total of fifty-four relatives and friends—to take part in the weaving process. They unraveled and washed old sweaters, wool pants, scarves, and gloves from their homes, and then knitted them into brightly colored fabric pieces marked with the LOVE symbol. These knitted pieces were then stitched together into a tapestry more than sixteen meters long and over six meters wide. The film records that unforgettable scene of collective labor: the mothers working tirelessly, my father shopping and cooking, and our two little dogs at the time, Huanhuan and Lele, keeping us company… On the land of Northeast China, it is because people have faith, warmth, and feeling that they are able, time and again, to endure the bitter winter and make their way into spring.

This is a quality of diligence and resilience worthy of our praise. It also allowed me to see how extraordinarily receptive people from the Northeast are to new ideas and new ways of thinking.

The passion in Northeastern people can be ignited very easily. Handcraft is part of the inherited fabric of our generations, and this was also a successful instance of traditional craft being advanced through a new set of ideas.

Now, more than ten years later, many of the people in the documentary have passed away.

My mother, too, left us forever in 2015. We miss her deeply.

Section Two: The Power of Flowers

Introduction

"Regenerative humanism is built upon the recognition of human complexity. It acknowledges the full qualities and complete rights of all human beings, regardless of their origin, gender, or age. It arises from ethics, namely solidarity and responsibility. It constitutes a planetary humanism of Earth-as-Homeland (embracing all homelands while making them one's own). Regenerative humanism means not only a sense of human community and mutual solidarity, but also a sense of being part of this extraordinary and unknown adventure, and the hope that it will continue to transform, giving birth to an entirely new future."

— Edgar Morin

The creative core of the works in this gallery is love and peace; it is also humanistic care. The overall tone of the gallery transforms the power of nature into reflections on time, space, the age we live in, and the process of walking. The work Flowers Behind Every Door #2 consists of an old pair of Qing-dynasty doors bursting open with flowers pouring forth. These doors were found in an overseas antiques market. They had already been painted blue, and through the mottled traces accumulated by time, they seem to tell us that they too once passed through a mysterious journey.

Guns and Roses originates from a world-famous press photograph by the French photographer Marc Riboud. We reinterpreted the original image through the traditional technique of screen printing, highlighting its texture and materiality. I then covered the entire surface with handwritten "LOVE,” adding a sense of perspective and movement while also giving the work a new interpretation. The inspiration for this flowing handwritten form of "LOVE" dates back to around 2003. At that time, I saw the album of Water Studies by the Southern Song painter Ma Yuan at the Palace Museum in Beijing. That experience of viewing the work has influenced me so deeply that its impact has lasted for more than twenty years. To this day, those rippling images of water continue to flow through my mind—so mysterious, so magnificent, so delicate, so elusive, and yet utterly mesmerizing to me. It was also for this reason that, during the pandemic, I began experimenting with colored-pencil works on paper, including FLOW, which is also included in this exhibition. For many years, the image of Water Studies has seemed to me like the surging passion that has continuously moved through my work: at times vast and rushing without end, at times winding and tender, serene and quiet.

In 2024, I was invited by the French fashion house Dior to create the sculpture The Power of Flowers #1, which was first shown in my solo exhibition ALL WE NEED IS LOVE at Victory Theater in Shanghai. The work was inspired by Monsieur Dior's sister, Catherine Dior. During the Second World War, this remarkable woman was arrested for opposing the war and imprisoned by the Nazis for ten months. Later, she returned to Provence and began cultivating rose gardens, spending her life in the fragrance of nature, and finally passing away in her own flower house in her nineties. This work pays tribute to Catherine and to all great, strong, and courageous women—to the feminine force devoted to love and peace.

This gallery presents the new work The Power of Flowers #2 for the first time. Together with the other two hand sculptures, The Power of Flowers #1 and AI Pray (created in 2015), it forms a triptych of works centered on the hand. I have always admired and cherished my own two hands, and for that reason, these three hand works were all modeled on my own hands. I have noticed that many artists are drawn to making works of hands—Picasso, Rodin, Bourgeois, and so on. The hand seems almost like an artist's second portrait, a part of the body the artist can rely on. It is used to express one's inner self and one's wishes; in that sense, hand and heart become one.

In addition, the gallery will also present a group of woven fiber works made from environmentally friendly bamboo fiber and other natural materials. This series is titled Seeing the Universe—Seeing You, and is derived from enlarged fragments of individual letters from the I Love Color series. By this title, and by what I mean through "Seeing—the Universe," I refer to a kind of belief: a belief accumulated little by little in the process of artistic creation, a way of envisioning the infinite possibilities within one's own practice.

A new installation in this gallery, titled Memory, is composed of fourteen paintings, an old vase, plastic flowers, three sculpted hands, and a number of small stone carvings, such as dragonflies, caterpillars, and ceramic daisies, made from marble, Shoushan stone, and other materials. This is an open "memory," an experience of nature. Perhaps everyone has had something similar. We draw strength from nature, and in sharing this, we hope to inspire viewers to bring their own personal memories into this scene.

Section Three: Walking in the Sun

Introduction

Is it still possible for humanity to find a global, plural narrative—a shared set of assumptions and expectations that can include everyone and be accepted by everyone? For the growing number of migrants in many parts of the world, this is a matter of life and death. "Who are 'we'?" is one of the great political questions of our time, and at its core it is inseparable from what we believe.

— Neil MacGregor

This gallery stays closely aligned with the central theme—walking in the sun. From my hometown of Shenyang, I walked to Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Hong Kong, and then onward to Japan, New York, London, Milan… My footsteps, like those of my ancestors, have been in constant movement—wandering, drifting, searching. I express, communicate, and share what I feel in the course of walking through music and visual art. From the perspective of personal narrative, I have entered the realm of global narrative, and this is an inevitable result of the times in which we live.

Today, across the globe, those displaced by war, those wandering through cities, those living in tents in refugee camps—the issues they reflect go far beyond mere survival. Although we are fortunate to be far from the battlefield, we still feel deeply with them and cannot turn away from the suffering that is taking place.

The new work The Little Girl Sleeping in a Tent was inspired by Anna Rahmoni, photographed by Muhammed Muheisen, a photographer who has won the Pulitzer Prize twice. The little girl sleeps inside a makeshift tent. Between her sweet face and the place of displacement in which she temporarily rests, there emerges a moment of calm, and the world seems once again beautiful and harmonious, as if the war itself had briefly come to a halt… The photographer captured that profoundly moving moment. Through this image, it tells people the meaning of peace. We are deeply grateful to Muhammed Muheisen for granting us permission and agreeing to our mode of reinterpretation, allowing the beautiful intention carried by this work to reach the wider world. And through it, we also wish to tell audiences in China that our hearts remain bound to those who have been devastated by war and suffering.

The Little Girl Sleeping in a Tent employs the same artistic method as Guns and Roses: after completing the screen-printed image, I wrote "LOVE" across the entire surface of the picture.

Another new work is an ornate tent titled Beautiful Barrier. The exterior of the work is wrapped in canvas covered all over with the word "LOVE," while inside the sound of ocean waves plays in an endless loop. What this work seeks to convey is that behind this painstakingly constructed "splendor," we still have an opportunity to move closer and go deeper, to feel and contemplate all that is happening here and now, in this moment, today.

In another area of Section Three, the three walls present "LOVE" works in black, gold, and silver-gray respectively. The method of making these works returns to the early period when I first established my studio in New York: minimalist in approach, ordered and restrained. These materials are all mixtures of natural substances—metal powder, mica, and sand. Inscribed on one work is a line by Enheduanna, the first recorded woman poet in human history: "I went towards light, it felt scorching to me."

The new work The Stones is a formation of stones: fragments from an old stone bridge in an ancient town that once bore the footsteps of passersby, through spring and autumn, people coming and going, stories having taken place, and stories still continuing… We arranged these stones into a circle, creating a contemplative field and leaving the work of thought to the viewer.

Walking in the sun is part of our daily lives. Under the light of the sun, we continue onward. The heat we endure is also a test for us. What we see and hear in the course of walking enriches our lives, and the wisdom we gain through walking becomes a source for creation.

References

Living with the Gods: 40000 Years of Peoples, Objects and Beliefs

 — Neil MacGregor

Lessons for a Century of Life — Edgar Morin

Reflections on History — Jacob Burckhardt

Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistics — Benedetto Croce

The Story of Art — E. H. Gombrich

Art and Civilization: Lectures on the History of Western Art — Fan Jingzhong

Special Thanks

Here, please allow me to express my heartfelt gratitude to my mentor, Mr. Fan Jingzhong. Over the years, he has continually offered me guidance and support, given me books, and directed the path of my reading, thereby expanding my opportunities to gain knowledge and giving me another wing with which to fly. My teacher once said, "Knowledge is like another wing.” The theoretical foundation of this exhibition also stems from the many years during which I had the privilege of learning from him.

My sincere thanks go to my curator, Professor He Guiyan, for his trust and support over the years. I would also like to thank Yan Weixin, Director of the "Two Museums,” Yang Kun, Deputy Director, and all the museum colleagues who have supported this exhibition. I would like to thank Associate Professor Tian Bo of the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts and his team for the design of the key visual for this exhibition. I thank my team at Ai Jing Studio, as well as my relatives, supporters, and close friends for their precious friendship and companionship.

My heartfelt thanks go to our Principal Sponsor, Dior, for its generous support. Dior has always paid close attention to artistic originality. The founder of the brand, Monsieur Dior, was once engaged in the art trade in his early years, and the artists he represented were later written into art history. In recent years, we have had the honor of maintaining a close collaboration with Dior, and the story of Catherine Dior, Monsieur Dior's sister, has deeply moved us. Dior has also provided great support for the children's public welfare project founded by our studio, "I Love Color – Little Genius Painting Competition.”

We would also like to thank The Macallan Single Malt Scotch Whisky for its generous support. The Macallan has always upheld a spirit of craftsmanship and the pursuit of exceptional quality, creating whiskies renowned for their rich and distinctive character and natural color. Our meeting began with a shared love of art.

Our thanks also go to Guangdong Runke Bioengineering Co., Ltd. for its generous support. Founded in 2000 in Shantou, Guangdong, the company is a national high-tech enterprise specializing in the research and production of microalgae-based nutritional foods and raw materials through modern bioengineering technology. As the first company in China and the second in the world to industrialize microalgae DHA, Runke has participated in the formulation of national standards and helped break foreign technological monopolies. Its algal DHA raw materials rank first in China and among the top three worldwide.

Finally, I would like to thank the educators and artists of the art world, as well as friends from all sectors of society and the media, for their attention and kindness. None of our encounters are accidental. All strength comes from the gifts of nature and from our determination to pursue and explore what is beautiful.

In a recently published book, Living with the Gods, there is a story like this: from one surviving sculpture discovered by humanity, historians concluded that even in an environment where the conditions of human survival were extremely harsh and limited, people still chose an artistic creator from within their community and allowed that person not to engage in hunting or gathering for survival, but simply to devote themselves to making art. This story tells us that at no time has humanity ceased to long for and explore the spiritual world.

I firmly believe that art exists in service to the public; it fulfills the public's pursuit of beauty and imagination. Art is a medium of spiritual exchange with its audience, and it is a shared need of society. Thank you to every viewer who walks into the museum—it is you who make the creation of art more meaningful.

— Ai Jing

March 2026