Alice Wang’s art practice combines scientific, technological, mythical, and spiritual perspectives to see how matter can be understood to embody existential qualities. Wang chooses specific materials (sensitive plants, moss, fossils, meteorites, silver, gold, water vapor, wind, beeswax, and other metamorphic substances) that convey the sentient universe through sensual, tactile, and metaphorical means, and imagines how the nature of reality can be expressed in the language of sculpture and film. 

As Wang’s most comprehensive recent institutional solo survey show, this exhibition is inspired by the notion of quantum physics, and will feature a series of works commissioned by UCCA. For the artist, UCCA Dune’s subterranean architecture underneath sand dunes sets the scene for an imaginary world of quantum computers. The long, dark corridor leading to the large atrium-like hall will become a portal into the uncanny world of the quantum dimension. The exhibition is curated by UCCA Curator Neil Zhang.

About the Artist

Alice Wang (b. 1983, Xi’an) has received a BSc in Computer Science and International Relations from the University of Toronto, a BFA from the California Institute of the Arts, and a MFA from New York University. She was a fellow at Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, a Villa Aurora fellow in Berlin, and the recipient of several major grants from the Canada Council for the Arts. Wang has presented solo exhibitions at OCAT Xi’an, Capsule Shanghai, Visitor Welcome Center (Los Angeles), Human Resources (Los Angeles), and 18th Street Arts Center (Los Angeles); participated in group exhibitions, screenings, and performances at He Xiangning Museum (Shenzhen), Para Site (Hong Kong), G Museum (Nanjing), the K11 Art Foundation (Hong Kong), Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibition, Armory Center for the Arts (Pasadena), the Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Taikang Space (Beijing), FLAX Foundation, and the Hammer Museum; and presented talks at UCCA Beijing, Chronus Art Center (Shanghai), and Shanghai Project. She is an assistant professor of arts at New York University Shanghai, and co-organizes The Magic Hour, an outdoor exhibition platform in the Mojave Desert in California. Wang is based between Shanghai and Los Angeles.