Chinese artist Guan Xiao (b. 1983, Chongqing) works with multiple media including video and sculpture. She received her BA in Directing at the Communication University of China in 2006 and is known for juxtaposing the past and future, primitive and classical, crude and high-tech and combining the various elements into a distinct and unique formal aesthetic. She practices from the standpoint that the internet’s openness provides a kind of flat surface on which to work, with a lack of hierarchy in the contemporary visual world. Guan Xiao: “(my world is) a flat and mixed situation where (I use) a particular visual language to re-weave all various materials to discuss the possibility of ‘watching’ and ‘practicing’ from a variety of perspectives”.

Guan has exhibited internationally including at the OCT Contemporary Art Terminal, Shenzhen, the V&A Museum, London; the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Korea, Seoul; the Shanghai Art Museum and the Art Museum of Nanjing University of Art. To name but a few: Degeneration, ACAF, Sydney, 2014; Don’t You Know Who I Am? Art After Identity Politics, M HKA Museum, Antwerp, 2014; Film Section, Basel Hong Kong, Agnes B Cinema, Hong Kong, 2014; Die 8 Wege, Uferhallen, Berlin, 2013; and OCT Contemporary Art Terminal, Shanghai, 2013; Difference Engine, Magician Space, Beijing, 2013; Video Unchained, AIKE-DELLARCO, Shanghai, 2013; China Design Now, Victoria & Albert Museum, London, 2007; and Floating - New Generation of Art in China, National Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul, 2007.

Her work also features in the book The Future Will Be…China, by Hans Ulrich Obrist. Her solo show Survivor Hunting, The Magician Space, Beijing, 2013 was recommended by Frieze.

Guan Xiao lives and works in Beijing.