Qiu Xiaofei: The Theater of Wither and Thrive at Hauser & Wirth 542 W 22nd St, New York, NY 10011 February 12 – April 18, 2026. Tue – Sat, 10 am to 6 pm
Qiu Xiaofei presents new oil paintings and works on paper inspired by previously unknown family photographs discovered after his father’s passing. From this intimate source, the exhibition expands into a meditation on memory, loss, and the world’s unstable transformations. Informed by Chinese philosophical traditions and Western poets such as Robert Lowell and Emily Dickinson, Qiu creates vivid, dreamlike scenes in which presence and absence unfold across psychological landscapes. Rooted in family history and his hometown of Harbin, his paintings merge abandoned architecture, nature, and imagination. Recurring spiral motifs evoke non-linear time, while layered imagery bridges personal remembrance with broader historical and emotional experience.
Carrying Herself as a Corpse (red), Samira Abbassy (2014) (oil on gesso panel), dyptych #2, image courtesy of the artist
The group show “Re-Orientations” at La Esquina in NYC features Samira Abbassy,Camille Eskell, Dhanashree Gdiyar, and Sheida Soleimani, 4 US based female artists who bring through figurative representation feminist perspectives rooted in the Near East and South Asia. The co-curators Natasha Stefanovic and Audra Lambert present these distinct feminist voices in context of “Orientalism,” the 1978 seminal and polemic book by renowned scholar Edward W. Said, a must read in Post-Colonial Culture Studies. Ranging formally from painting to embroidery, and thematically from identity to immigration, the images overall depict tragic and at times nostalgic moments rooted in the artists’ cultural background. Underscored with post-colonial sensibility, these intimate narratives humanize and defy the stereotype of what is “oriental.”
