Observer’s Guide to What Not to Miss at This Year’s Shanghai Art Week

Tank is also presenting a solo exhibition by the acclaimed British painter Issy Wood , "What I Eat In A Day," showcasing a selection of her smaller-scale works and offering a glimpse into her creative process. Her moody, dark canvases provide cinematic glimpses of body gestures and fragments of humanity, all enveloped in a dusty pall, with a sense of mystery and impending tragedy that makes them both dramatic and captivating. Each object within this cinematic frame is obscured in shadows, appearing as neglected relics or material memories slowly slipping into oblivion yet memorialized in paint.

Finally, in its project space, Tank has mounted a solo exhibition by Brooklyn-based artist Patricia Ayres titled "Unrequited Remnants." Ayres's uncanny sculptures, ranging from totemic figures and wall-mounted cocoons to amorphous floorworks, evoke remnants of tormented or oppressed bodies. She gradually forms human figures that are both imposing and vulnerable, exposing skin-toned, fleshy folds that hint at emotional burdens and the physical oppression inflicted upon them. Her work draws from a variety of societal constraints, including the ritual morality of Catholicism, the U.S. incarceration system and commercialized ideals of the body in media. These sculptural assemblages function as "matter out of place," a concept explored by Mary Douglas in relation to dirt: the unconventional, unstable categorization of these convulsing entities invites viewers to see them as both profoundly human and alien.

In his debut exhibition at Lisson Shanghai, Kapoor presents a series of new drawings and gouaches centered around the concept of the "void." His intense brushstrokes, rendered in vibrant and visceral colors, trace the tension between the inner and outer worlds, between light and darkness, infusing these works with an epic sense of tragedy. The energetic sweeps of color and nuanced play of shadow and light create a physical, psychological and emotional depth, weaving an interplay between background, foreground, and interiority that suggests an infinite space drawing the viewer inward. Oscillating between the corporeal and the transcendent, Kapoor's new series reveals both an internal and external landscape, where primordial forces of chaos and harmony engage in a vital dialectic tension from which all creation seems to arise.

" Drawings " is on view at Lisson Gallery Shanghai through January 25.

Voraciously drawing from the entire sweep of art history, Ali Banisadr 's intricate canvases become repositories of the full spectrum of human drama, spanning the physical and psychological, the imaginative and the historically grounded. Chameleonic and seemingly chaotic, his work flows with forms, fragments, and textures, creating fantastical synesthesias of color and brushwork. Banisadr's process is highly intuitive, almost divinatory, akin to the surrealist concept of "automatic drawings." Sharing similarities with Max Ernst's surrealist techniques of grattage (scraping) and frottage (rubbing), he allows mysterious figures and hybrid creatures to emerge from the dense swirls and gestures of paint across both large and small canvases. His paintings are allegorical and symbolic, poetic in their ability to connect with reality while transcending it, tapping into otherworldly and parallel realms. For his debut show in China, Banisadr has created a heterogeneous body of work, ranging from figurative and narrative pieces to more abstract compositions, establishing intriguing connections with traditional Chinese ink painting's ability to capture transient moments in nature, translating energy flow and atmosphere within and around his subjects.

Drawing from the Buddhist notion of "Phowa," which refers to the moment a person's consciousness is transferred to enlightenment or a higher state of being, Ji's new solo exhibition at Hive Contemporary presents a series of interconnected paintings. Ji's powerful abstractions explore various states of consciousness and intuition, hinting at something deeper beyond the visible surface of reality. Using a meticulous approach to pigments, colors, and mediums such as wax, charcoal powder, and resin, Ji creates layers of complexity that resist direct reference or narrative. As the press release notes, his paintings are neither bound by the laws of "purity and self-criticism" nor confined to interpretations (which, for painterliness, can be a form of superficiality) of any single image. Instead, they remain open to multiple readings and continuous reactivations.

Also this week, Hive is debuting the first solo exhibition in Asia by emerging painter Fu Liang in their space "Hive Becoming," part of their commitment to supporting young artists. Featuring a dozen new paintings, Liang's work delves into archetypes and cultural complexes within the human unconscious, which surface through the painting process. Navigating the boundaries of consciousness and subconscious, between control and intuition, Liang immerses himself in textures that evoke a sense of void and suspension. His subjects often appear mysteriously, emerging from dark hues as if surfacing from old memories or a dreamlike state. These visual echoes of personal or collective memory remain suspended between internal and external space, the visible and invisible worlds, as the original physical objects dissolve.

"ALCHEMISTS" at Pond Society

Featuring a stellar lineup of major names and rising stars—including Jadé Fadojutimi, Ilana Savdie , Emma McIntyre , Marina Perez Simão, and Daisy Parris —this group show opening at Pond Society during Shanghai Art Week celebrates the transformative power of abstraction. These artists explore innovative ways to make the intangible visible through gestural flows, contrasting paint tides and dynamic tensions. The nine contemporary women artists with works displayed here challenge conventional storytelling, offering fresh perspectives on narrative conveyed through an abstract language of color. They channel energies and sensations that transcend linguistic and symbolic realms, inviting viewers to experience emotion and movement beyond words.

" ALCHEMISTS " is on view at Pond Society through December 12.

Bony Ramirez's "100 Rabbits Minus 1" at BANK / MAB Society

For his first solo show in Asia, "100 Rabbits minus One," Dominican Republic-born and New Jersey-based artist Bony Ramirez embarks on a playful exploration of the relentless yet complicated pursuit of perfection, starting with an investigation of models and values imposed since childhood and often mainly shaped by parents' expectations. "The idea of reaching excellence, to be flawless, is something we all chase," Ramirez states in the press release. "But somewhere along the way, there's always that extra step, that feeling that 100 is never really achievable. This exhibition explores that gap – between how close we come and how far we feel." In this new series of multimedia work, the artist employs the theme of ballet training to explore the complex emotions behind striving for an unrealistic ideal, between frustration, ambition and desire for perfection that is often beyond human capabilities.