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Taiwanese-American artist Cheang Shu Lea's "UKI Virus Rising" featured in Los Angeles

  • Date:2021-10-10~2022-01-09
Taiwanese-American artist Cheang Shu Lea's 'UKI Virus Rising' featured in Los Angeles

The exhibition "Witch Hunt" will take place at the Hammer Museum from Oct. 10, 2021 to Jan. 9, 2022, presenting the works of 16 women artists from 13 countries, who use feminist, queer, and decolonial strategies to investigate current and historical political events, social conditions, and overlooked or suppressed artistic legacies.

With the support from the Ministry of Culture and the Taiwan Academy of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Los Angeles, the exhibition is organized by Connie Butler, Hammer Museum Chief Curator, and Anne Ellegood, Institute of Contemporary Art Museum, Los Angeles Executive Director.

Taiwanese-American artist Cheang Shu Lea (鄭淑麗) will display her three-channel video installation "UKI Virus Rising" at the museum. The virus is the exploratory subject of Cheang's works since the 2000s. As part of this series of works that respond to all kinds of chaos caused by the pandemic, "UKI Virus Rising" proposes dialectical thinking to the virus. As a source of contagion, the virus is not only associated with invasion and attack but also inscribed with the potentiality to propagate, mobilize, and resist.

During the exhibition, the Hammer Museum will also provide one virtual artist talk with the artist.

Cheang is a prominent Taiwanese-American artist and filmmaker who employs various art mediums and film formats in her works. Her project "Brandon" (1998-1999) was the first piece of web art commissioned and collected by the Guggenheim Museum in New York. In 2019, her project titled "3x3x6" represented the Taiwan Pavilion at the 58th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia.

Located in Westwood of Los Angeles County, the Hammer Museum is an art museum and cultural center which is one of three public art institutions of the School of the Arts and Architecture at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). It is well-known for its rich collection and progressive array of innovative exhibitions in visual art. For decades, it has been devoted to promoting social justice and artistic freedom.