rhinoceros presents Xi Niu: In Search of New Routes, a special project exploring contemporary artistic practices from China, curated by independent curator Claire Shiying Li.

The exhibition brings together seven distinct artistic practices spanning generations and mediums: Cao Minghao and Chen Jianjun, Hao Liang, Han Mengyun, Xie Fan, Xie Nanxing, Zhao Gang and Zhou Yilun. Through painting, sculptural installation, film, material research and transdisciplinary collaboration, the artists create hybrid visual languages ​​informed by centuries of entanglement across Europe and Asia.

Taking historical research on the Silk Road as its point of departure, Xi Niu moves beyond conventional accounts of the route as primarily a conduit for commodities. Instead, it approaches the Silk Road as a mobile infrastructure through which natural resources, technologies, knowledge and beliefs have circulated for centuries, and diplomatic relations have been forged. Bringing together transcultural methodologies grounded in the artists' lived experiences, the exhibition foregrounds ecological interdependence, cultural specificity, and the situated relationships through which movement, exchange and cultural production take place.

The works on view explore these exchanges from different perspectives. Continuing his exploration of celestial motifs on terracotta in Rome, Xie Fan reconsiders painting's prehistoric origins as his resistance to establish hierarchies; Hao Liang brings traditional Chinese ink painting into dialogue with postmodern media and literary references; Han Mengyun draws connections between framing and block-printing traditions across China, India, Persia and Japan; and drawing on Rome's architecture and archaeological sites, Zhao Gang channels the radical potential of classical Chinese landscape painting through Kippenberger-esque dark humor and Neo-Expressionist brushwork.

Zhou Yilun reinterprets Chinese traditions of folding screens through used materials sourced in Rome, while Xie Nanxing investigates the photographic image and its claim to truth. Cao Minghao and Chen Jianjun explore ecological knowledge held by local communities and the ongoing melting of glaciers on the Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau.

The name Xi Niu, meaning “rhinoceros” in Chinese, serves as the project's imaginary totem, representing travel, resilience and openness to encounter. Through these combined practices, Xi Niu: In Search of New Routes offers a reading of contemporary China beyond fixed identities and singular narratives, presenting culture as the result of multiple routes, unexpected encounters and forms of knowledge capable of crossing geographical and temporal boundaries.