The MAMCO invites Guan Xiao to present an exhibition in the Temple of Châtelaine, an unconventional venue for contemporary art. Built in 1959 by architects André and Francis Gaillard, this modern, almost brutalist building features a main hall measuring 15 × 15 meters, preceded by a vestibule and surrounded by a garden. This unusual space provides a singular setting to discover the work of an artist such as Guan Xiao.

Born in Chongqing in 1983, trained and based in Beijing, Guan Xiao emerged in the mid-2000s. Since her 2015 exhibition in Shanghai, she has developed series blending tradition and technology: hybrid assemblages, gēndiāo (traditional root sculptures in dialogue with oversized painter’s palettes), and installations combining sculptures with kaleidoscopic wallpaper patterns evoking photographic studios. These works, now internationally acclaimed, have entered the collections of Cologne’s Museum Ludwig and were featured in the 2015 New Museum Triennial, alongside artists associated with the so-called “post-Internet” generation.

Guan Xiao’s work thrives on contrasts: archaic and industrial, natural and synthetic, intimate and spectacular. Rather than resolving these oppositions, she sustains them to sketch a non-binary world where artifacts and living beings coexist in a fertile tension. Drawing on Eastern mythologies and philosophical currents, she examines both archetypes and stereotypes, building her works upon rich semantic interplays.

• The exhibition is curated by Julien Fronsacq