photo: maryam hoseini
WangShui
1986, Dallas, TX
WangShui’s work explores divergent structures of perception. Through video, sculpture, painting and installation, they examine the psychosomatic loops that form our experience of the world. The artist’s practice integrates diverse personal experiences and research into desire, architecture and media. A central theme in their work is liminality and its radical potential as a form of resistance. WangShui often addresses the latent space of images and materials as a way to activate the hallucinatory states between detail and distance, transparency and opacity, knowing and unknowing.
WangShui received a BA in Art Practice and Social Anthropology from UC Berkeley, CA and an MFA in Film and Video from Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY.
WangShui lives and works in New York.
installation view of lipid muse (2024) in stranieri ovunque – foreigners everywhere, 60th international art exhibition of la biennale di venezia, giardini and arsenale 2024. photo: nick ash
installation view of lipid muse (2024) in stranieri ovunque – foreigners everywhere, 60th international art exhibition of la biennale di venezia, giardini and arsenale 2024. photo: nick ash
installation view of lipid muse (2024) in stranieri ovunque – foreigners everywhere, 60th international art exhibition of la biennale di venezia, giardini and arsenale 2024. photo: nick ash
installation view of lipid muse (2024) in stranieri ovunque – foreigners everywhere, 60th international art exhibition of la biennale di venezia, giardini and arsenale 2024. photo: nick ash
installation view of lipid muse (2024) in stranieri ovunque – foreigners everywhere, 60th international art exhibition of la biennale di venezia, giardini and arsenale 2024. photo: nick ash
installation view of lipid muse (2024) in stranieri ovunque – foreigners everywhere, 60th international art exhibition of la biennale di venezia, giardini and arsenale 2024. photo: nick ash
pillow iv (fantastischer geschmack), 2023. installation view of window of tolerance, at haus der kunst, munich, 2023
fundamental attribution error, 2023. installation view at schinkel pavillon, berlin
installation view of going dark: the contemporary figure at the edge of visibility, solomon r. guggenheim museum, new york, 2023. photo: midge wattles © solomon r. guggenheim foundation
cowlick buzz, 2023
installation view (detail) of wangshui: poiesis, rockbund art museum, shanghai, 2023
gubra (fig∵re v), 2023
encounter II, 2023
titration point (isle of vitr∴ ous), 2022.
ph∴sphene study II, 2021
el decorum, 2021
mindful witness, 2021
blindsided, 2021
isle of vitr∴ ous, 2022. installation view at the whitney biennial, 2022
sliver, 2019. installation view of open call: group 2, the shed, new york, 2019
scr∴pe II (isle of vitr∴ ous), 2022. installation view at the whitney biennial, 2022
gardens of perfect exposure, 2018. installation view of horizontal vertigo, julia stoschek foundation, berlin, 2019
from its mouth came a river of high-end residential appliances, 2018. installation view of horizontal vertigo, julia stoschek foundation, berlin, 2019
weak pearl, 2019. installation view of horizontal vertigo, julia stoschek foundation, berlin, 2019
installation view of window of tolerance, at haus der kunst, munich, 2023
notable solo exhibitions
Toleranzfenster (Window of Tolerance), Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany (2023); WangShui: poiesis, Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai, China (2023); Whitney Screens: David Hartt and WangShui, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY (2020); WangShui, Julia Stoschek Collection, Berlin (2019), among others.
selected group exhibitions
Inheritance, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY (2023); Going Dark: The Contemporary Figure at the Edge of Visibility, Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY (2023); Human Is, Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin (2023); Myth Makers–Spectrosynthesis III, Tai Kwun, Hong Kong (2022); Quiet as It’s Kept, Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2022); No Humans Involved, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA (2021); Open Call, The Shed, New York (2019); International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR), The Netherlands (2019); In Practice: Another Echo, SculptureCenter, Long Island City, NY (2018); New York Film Festival, Film at Lincoln Center, New York (2018); SCREENING, 67 Ludlow, New York (2017); anonymous gallery, Mexico City (2017); among others.
WangShui’s work has been included in the 60th Venice Biennale in 2024, as part of the main exhibition, Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere. Their work was also included at Manifeste de la fragilité, Biennale de Lyon, France (2022).
