Asian Stories — Sui Jianguo

Tokyo Gallery + BTAP is pleased to announce the upcoming exhibition “Asian Stories — Sui Jianguo at Tokyo Gallery + BTAP,” on view from May 20 to June 27, 2026.

This exhibition takes as its point of departure the exchanges between artistic practices across different cultural contexts and dimensions, seeking to explore the self-driven creativity and shared values within contemporary Asian art. Curated by the founder of Beijing Commune, Leng Lin, the exhibition foregrounds a network of relationships that transcend geography, identity, and time. A key point of engagement within the exhibition lies in the long-standing relationship between gallerist Yukihito Tabata and artist Sui Jianguo. Their encounters, collaborations, and mutual understanding—shaped across many historical moments and cultural contexts in East Asia—form a resonance that underpins the exhibition. At the same time, such collaborations, grounded in shared recognition, inevitably reveal productive differences. These “consensuses through difference” constitute an important dimension of contemporary subjectivity within East Asian art.

Since his first visit to China in 1989, when he encountered Chinese contemporary art for the first time, Tabata has maintained a deep artistic connection with Sui Jianguo. He was struck by the material tension in Sui’s work—particularly the collision between stone and metal—and has long recognized the conceptual rigor underlying the artist’s practice. While informed by Western Conceptual Art, Sui’s work remains firmly rooted in the social realities of China, which informs his distinctively situated artistic language. Over the decades, Tabata has actively supported and participated in the development of Asian art. In this exhibition, he contributes written reflections on his understanding of East Asian art and Sui Jianguo’s practice. The exhibition presents key works spanning Sui Jianguo’s oeuvres, from early material experimentation to the deepening of conceptual inquiry. On view are major works including stone-and-metal structural installations and the rubber-and-nail piece Ji, among others. In contrast to the Japanese Mono-ha movement, which strives to restore "objects" to their primal state and emphasizes the exploration of "relationships" between objects and space, Sui Jianguo's practice is consistently grounded in local experience, bodily sensation, and temporal anxiety—imbuing materials with the weight and warmth of life. His recent works, in particular, provide a significant case study for contemporary artistic dialogue rooted in the continuity of history and civilization within an Asian context.

“Asian Stories” is conceived as a reflective proposition on value formation through transnational exchange. By re-examining these values, the exhibition invites a reconsideration of our respective present conditions of existence and their interrelations.