Exhibition丨蛇纹绿岩 Ophiolite

Choi Centre · Cloud House is honored to announce the latest exhibition, Ophiolite. Co-presented by Choi Foundation and the French Embassy in China, this exhibition will be launched at Choi Centre · Cloud House in Jiangtai, Chaoyang District, Beijing on June 22nd, 2023 and will last for 3 months.

Over 300 guests including art journalists will be in attendance at the exhibition opening

The featured artists in Ophiolite are the winners of “2022 Choi Foundation Contemporary Art Award” — Cao Minghao and Chen Jianjun, an artist duo from Chengdu, China, and Adrien Missika, a French artist based in Berlin. 

These exceptional artists have long been immersing themselves in artistic practices centered around ecological issues, approaching and interpreting the ecological objects and contexts that interest them from a humble, serious, friendly, and poetic perspective. 

System Refuge#2：The site of a traditional rammed earth dwelling after the earthquake

The exhibition featured some artworks from each artist, representing their unique creative trajectories. By inviting the audience to explore water systems, plants, and the hidden realm of “Ophiolite” within the composition of the world, Ophiolite encourages deeper investigation and understanding of the connection and interrelation between humans and the surrounding environment, meanwhile providing a reference for how we can interact with others and with the unknown, thus finally prompting the visitors to search for the various magical codes that connect us to the world we inhabit. 

Missika-Monument Geologique I

The exhibition is a showcase of winners of the 2nd edition of “Choi Foundation Contemporary Art Award”, highlighting the collaborative efforts between the Choi Foundation, the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Nice (France), and the Inside-Out Art Museum in Beijing (China). Ms. Carol Yinghua Lu, the Director of the Inside-Out Art Museum acts as the curator of the exhibition.

As a core dialogue between the Choi Foundation and the French Embassy in China, the “Choi Foundation Contemporary Art Award” plays a transformative role in shaping the shared future of art and culture. This year, as a part of the Croisements Festival, the “Choi Foundation Contemporary Art Award” focuses on the exploration of the intertwined relationship between the eco-environment and contemporary artistic expressions from a broader perspective. 

Choi Centre · Cloud House courtyard

Choi Centre · Cloud House is a non-profit cultural exchange center operated by Jonathan K.S. Choi Foundation. With a long history, Cloud House was officially taken over by the Foundation in 2021 for renovation. At present, the Foundation has reached a strategic collaboration with the French Embassy in China and the China Cluster of the European Union National Institute of Culture (EUNIC), dedicating to various cultural activities at Cloud House to further promote the artistic and cultural exchanges between China and Europe. 

artist cross-residence space 

In April of this year, French President Emmanuel Macron, during his state visit to China, announced a groundbreaking "cross-residence project" in collaboration with Choi Foundation at the opening of the 17th edition of the "Festival Croisements." Macron addressed that this visionary program of cross-residencies aims to support creators, artists, and designers committed to transforming society. At the signing ceremony, witnessed by French Minister of Culture Ms. Rima Abdul Malak and Deputy Head of Mission Ms. Myriam Pavageau, Mr. Gilbert Choy, Director of Jonathan K.S. Choi Foundation, signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Mr. Nicolas Pillerel, Minister Counselor of the French Embassy in China, officially launching the cross-residencies project. 

About the artists 

Cao Minghao and Chen Jianjun 

Artists Cao Minghao & Chen Jianjun currently live and work in Chengdu. Their art practices are research-based and process-oriented, highlighting the reciprocal collaboration between the artists and their partners. Dedicated to the dialogical relationship between the realities and the survival of myriad things, their practices grow from a space of entanglement in-between the material ecology of waters and the current socio-environmental realities of mankind. Tapping into this space largely untouched by existent inquiries, they explore the vicissitude of ecologies and the re-imaginaries of the future. The entanglement space indicates neither a reactionary and passive way to protect water nor a conservative view that only emphasizes human society and its survival, but how we can reconstruct our comprehension of the future and countless possibilities between material ecology and human society. Practicing multiple visual narrative methods through long-term, site-specific art making, they build up a momentum for the alliance among all beings.

Their projects have been presented in exhibitions and screenings throughout Asia and Europe, including documenta fifteen in Kassel (2022), Rethinking Nature at Madre Museum (2021-2022), the 13th Shanghai Biennale (2020-2021), and COSMOPOLIS #2.0: Repenser l’humain in Centre Pompidou (Paris, 2019). 

Adrien Missika 

The work of Adrien Missika humorously investigates the natural and the cultural. Using epistemology as a base for research, his conceptual approach drifts into poetic and hypothetical narratives.Through a variety of media, from video, photography, sculpture to installation and action, the work digs into the wide range of natural and environmental sciences, such as biology, landscape architecture and geography to name a few. Overcoming the logic of capitalism, Missika's artistic practice nurtures a space for possible worlds.

Adrien Missika (b.1981, Paris) studied at Ecole Cantonale d'art de Lausanne (Ecal). He was a co-founder of Galerie 1M3, Lausanne, (2006-2014), founder and art director of Belo Campo, Lisbon, (2017- present). He currently lives in Berlin. His projects have been shown in exhibitions including Pflegehinweise, Kunstfenster Gnas in Austria (2022), Cura, Matsutake Gallery, Yvon Lambert Bookshop in Paris, France (2019), Aquí Allá Ahí , Proyectos Monclova in Mexico City, Mexico (2018) and Il Palazzo Delle Api, Fondazione la Raia, Gavi in Italy (2018). 

蛇纹绿岩 Ophiolite

Artists Winners of the 2nd Choi Foundation Contemporary Art Award

Cao Minghao and Chen Jianjun 曹明浩、陈建军 (China) 

Adrien Missika 阿德里恩·米西卡 (France)

Curator: Carol Yinghua Lu 卢迎华

Assisstant Curator: Zhang Yichuan 张艺川

Organized By: Jonathan K.S. Choi Foundation, Ambassade de France en Chine 

Exhibition Information

Exhibition Date: June 22nd to September 17th, 2023
Venue: Choi Centre · Cloud House
Address: No.16 Huantie Zhixian Section A, Jiangtai, Chaoyang District, Beijing, China 

Free Admission to the Exhibition

Opening Hours

Tuesday - Sunday 11:00 - 18:00 

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