Art with Xirui — In-depth Art Stories, Interviews & Films

Art with Xirui

Bilingual art writing and films by Xirui Huang: artist interviews, exhibitions, collecting, and stories from the art world.

Xirui Huang at Half Moon Bay, California

Art Journalist · Art Video & Documentary Producer · Contributing Lead Author & Senior Producer, Yitiao · Lecturer, Shanghai Theatre Academy

About Xirui Huang →

Bilingual art writing and films by Xirui Huang: artist interviews, exhibitions, collecting, and stories from the art world.

Ana Mendieta’s indoor forest installation at Tate Modern

interview · London, United Kingdom

She Put Her Body into the Earth, Searching for a Home to Return To

From leaving Cuba at 12 to returning her body to the earth: a conversation with Tate Modern curator Valentine Umansky about Ana Mendieta’s life, work and unfinished possibilities......

By / Xirui Huang · 12 min read

10/22/20262,475 words

Latest

interview

RM, Leader of Global Pop Phenomenon BTS, Opens His First Major Art Collection Exhibition: ‘I Don’t Want to Become a Boring Rich Person’

At SFMOMA, RM brings nearly 150 works from his personal collection into conversation with the museum’s holdings. He talks about discovering Korean art, living with the works he loves, and the uncomfortable questions that collecting can raise......

By Xirui Huang

10/20/20262,751 words

Pierre Huyghe’s Apnea aquarium at Fondation Beyeler

interview

Pierre Huyghe, One of the World’s Most Avant-Garde Artists, Lets His Works Grow, Change, and Decay

At Fondation Beyeler, Xirui Huang walks through eight galleries with Pierre Huyghe, discussing a breathing lung, living ecosystems, artificial intelligence, and works that need not wait to be seen in order to exist......

By Xirui Huang

10/8/20263,381 words

Zhou Chunya at Song Art Museum, Beijing, 2026

interview

At 70, How Is Zhou Chunya Repainting the Chinese Landscape?

In September 2026, Zhou Chunya’s largest and longest-ranging solo exhibition in Beijing opened at Song Art Museum. Curated by Cui Cancan, Mountain Stone, Garden, Peach Blossom, Green Dog brings together nearly one hundred paintings, works on paper, sketches, films, and archival materials. On opening day, we spoke with the curator, who has known Zhou for fourteen years......

By Xirui Huang

9/22/20263,630 words

Frieze Seoul Art Week 2026: six major exhibitions in Seoul

field

Frieze Seoul Art Week 2026: Inside Six Major Exhibitions

Beyond the fifth edition of Frieze Seoul, six major exhibitions reveal the city at its most ambitious—from the first museum retrospective since Georg Baselitz’s death to landmark presentations of Do Ho Suh, Koo Jeong A, Sol LeWitt, Es Devlin, and Lee Bae......

By Xirui Huang

9/7/20263,991 words

field

New York’s New Museum Reopens After Three Years and a $100 Million Renovation—with a Record-Breaking Exhibition

After nearly three years of closure and an expansion costing more than $100 million, New York’s New Museum has reopened. Its largest-ever opening exhibition, New Humans: Memories of the Future, asks through 732 works: as machines become more human, what are humans becoming......

By Xirui Huang

8/26/20263,645 words

Centre Pompidou Hanwha Seoul 2026 opening exhibition

field

Centre Pompidou Hanwha Seoul 2026: 91 Cubist Masterworks

This summer, the Centre Pompidou opened its second Asian outpost on the banks of Seoul's Han River. The inaugural show brings together ninety-one major Cubist works by Picasso, Braque, and others — and raises a question worth asking: why does the Pompidou keep coming back to Asia......

By Xirui Huang

8/1/20262,518 words

Film

Yuja Wang: Short dresses. Fearless playing. | Art with Xirui

Film

Yuja Wang: Short Dresses, Fearless Playing—Who Decides What a Pianist Should Be?

Short dresses, towering heels, and dazzling technique may be what first draws people to Yuja Wang. But there is much more to hear beyond the headlines. From stepping in for Martha Argerich as a young pianist to her Rachmaninoff marathon at Carnegie Hall, Wang’s career has been a story of extraordinary challenges and constant evolution. In this video, I explore her breakthrough, the scrutiny surrounding her stage image, and what I hear as a growing freedom and emotional depth in her playing. It is also a reflection on a woman defining herself on a stage crowded with expectations. Beyond what Yuja Wang wears, what does her music have to say?

10/24/20264:31

Film

At Nanjing’s Midnight Museum, a Late-Night Flower Show for the Overworked

At 10 P.M., how do you step out of the clamor of Nanjing’s commercial center and into a hushed, expansive world of floral art? At Deji Art Museum, the only museum in the world open until midnight, its core permanent exhibition since the museum opened in August 2023, “Motion and Stillness Without End: Masterpieces of Floral Art from the Collection,” reopens on October 24, 2025, in its first major reinstallation after more than two years, with nearly one-third of the works on view replaced.

10/30/20253:54

Film

Aichi Triennale Returns with Art Rooted in Place

A post-apocalyptic vision in an abandoned school, artworks in a bathhouse, and a monumental installation in a clay-mining warehouse—alongside works by Hiroshi Sugimoto, Simone Leigh, Izumi Kato, and Osamu Tezuka. The sixth Aichi Triennale opens September 14, 2025, across Nagoya and Seto.

9/26/20254:33

Film

The Beijing Collector Who Finds Collecting with Friends as Joyful as Falling in Love

Yu Yan is a veteran Beijing collector, former editorial director of Shilin magazine, and the laughing, playful, poetry-loving, art-market-skeptical “Auntie Yan” known throughout the art world. She began seriously collecting contemporary art in 2008 or 2009 and has continued for more than fifteen years. Her collection includes paintings, installations, sculpture, photography, and a substantial number of conceptual video works, totaling nearly 200 pieces, as well as…

5/12/20254:15

Film

A Chinese Designer's New Milan Exhibition Carries a Sincere Eastern Sensibility

At Milan Design Week in April 2025, designer Chen Yaoguang unveiled Gift, a large-scale installation in the central courtyard of the University of Milan. Sponsored by KUKA Home, the 24-meter-wide work spread across more than 3,000 square meters like a field of golden spring flowers. Seen from above, it resembled both a cake and a pizza, with one slice intentionally cut away as an offering from the East.

4/19/20254:33

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