MAO XUHUI: EMERGENCE OF THE PATRIARCH
curated by Lü Peng, Li Guohua, Carlotta Scarpa
Museo di Palazzo Grimani | Musei archeologici nazionali di Venezia e della Laguna
Ramo Grimani 4858 – 30122
28 November - 1 February 2026
Opening hours: 9:00 am - 7:00 pm
For the first time in Italy, an exhibition is dedicated to Chinese artist Mao Xuhui, one of the most influential figures in contemporary Chinese avant-garde art. “Mao Xuhui: Emergence of the Patriarch”, curated by Lü Peng, Li Guohua and Carlotta Scarpa, is organised by L-ART GALLERY with Manuela Schiavano and hosted by the Museo di Palazzo Grimani – part of the National Archaeological Museums of Venice and the Lagoon. The exhibition showcases a selection of 43 works spanning fifty years of the artist’s painting exploration, offering a complex and layered interpretation of his work.
Considered one of the most significant figures of his generation, Mao Xuhui (born in 1956 in Sichuan Province) is now represented in the collections of major international museums and galleries. Trained at Yunnan University of the Arts – where he currently teaches at the College of Human Sciences – his career is intertwined with the birth of contemporary art in China. This is particularly due to his role as co-founder of the Southwestern Art Research Group in Kunming and his participation in the '85 New Wave' movement, which marked a decisive turning point in the country’s art scene.
During those years of significant change, Mao developed a painting style he called “life painting”: a language rich in emotional tension, capable of directly reflecting the social and cultural reality of southwestern China. While drawing inspiration from the still life tradition, he radically reimagines its structure, transforming it into an existential and conceptual reflection. For the artist, the recurring motif of scissors – a simple, everyday object – takes on a symbolic and ambiguous meaning, linked to themes of control, power, vulnerability, and will. This motif permeates his work for over a decade, culminating in the celebrated Will / Scissors cycle, a pinnacle of his artistic exploration.
As art critic and historian Lü Peng states,
“From 1978 to the early decades of the 21st century, Chinese society underwent profound and complex transformations that affected every aspect of collective life. In this context, Mao Xuhui’s art offers a valuable key to understanding these changes: a bridge between socialist realism, expressionism, and modernity, capable of narrating the cultural and spiritual transition of contemporary China.”
Housed on the second floor of the Museo di Palazzo Grimani in Venice, the exhibition showcases a selection of iconic works that offer a broad and nuanced insight into his artistic exploration. As part of a series of in-depth studies dedicated to Chinese artists from the generations before and after 1985, the exhibition presents Mao as an ideal counterpoint to the young Zhang Zhaoying, the focus of the previous exhibition Lifelong Beauty. The choice of Palazzo Grimani as the exhibition venue amplifies this dialogue. The ancient Renaissance residence, with its decorations by Giovanni da Udine, Francesco Salviati, and Federico Zuccari, and the famous collection of classical statues commissioned by Giovanni Grimani, becomes the setting where Mao Xuhui’s research – poised between memory, authority, and tradition – directly confronts history and the cultural heritage of the past.
The exhibition, designed as a retrospective, offers a deep understanding of his visual language, highlighting the thematic and formal evolution that runs through all of his work. As the exhibition’s title suggests, the theme of patriarchy emerges at the heart of his visual language, serving as a reflection on authority and power, both within the family and in the political sphere. In the Patriarch series, Mao transforms the father figure into a symbolic presence, an emblem of structures of control and tradition. Through geometric forms, sombre tones, and stark compositions, the artist conveys the complexity of the relationship with authority – poised between respect, fear, and rebellion – transforming the private sphere into a universal meditation on social hierarchies and the weight of Chinese cultural memory.
On this occasion, the artist’s illustrated biography, published by Skira and edited by Prof. Lü Peng himself, will also be presented for the first time in Italy. The book traces the artist’s ideological and creative evolution, reconstructed through personal documents and materials, including diaries, letters, paintings, reading notes, and transcripts. The result is a profound and authentic portrait, recounting the true story and illustrious years of an extraordinary generation in China. Emergence of the Patriarch further demonstrates Lü Peng’s commitment to preserving and illuminating the diverse narratives of contemporary Chinese art.
Spanning fifty years of Chinese art history, the exhibition aims to restore a profound sense of the connection between the individual, cultural identity, and collective memory. It offers a powerful and timely reflection on crucial themes such as power, family, will, and the transformation of the subject in a globalised society. A unique opportunity for both national and international audiences to discover, or rediscover, the work of a fundamental artist whose expressive exploration continues to lucidly question our time.
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