Hairpin Beneath 钗之后
a collaborative project with Zishi Han



Emerging from Zishi Han and Wei Yang’s ongoing collaborative research project into historical Chinese homoerotic literature, Hairpin Beneath is an evolving performance that intertwines multiple narratives to explore queer existences in China and the Chinese diaspora. The point of their departure is a Ming dynasty anthology of homoerotic stories, ‘弁而釵’ (‘Biàn ér chāi’). The title of the book implies the scene of a man taking off his ceremonial headgear and putting on a woman's hairpin. Structured around a set of excerpts from the book, they loosely interpret its storylines and draw on a variety of Chinese historical and contemporary cultural practices, such as poetry, Chinese Opera, literati landscape painting, Danmei literature, pop music and reality TV shows.

Oscillating between live reading and video projection, they assemble formally distinct but correlating components of the performance to dwell amidst the blurry boundary between the fictional and the biographical. Live reading texts are drawn from ‘Biàn ér chāi’ (bai hua version), translated into written vernacular Chinese by 执迷 (Zh. m.), published in instalments on 书香门第 (Shū xiāng m.n d.). Excerpts are edited and translated into English by Zishi Han and Wei Yang.


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13/03/2025   

In Practice
SculptureCenter, New York

30/06/2024    

Swarm
Tropez, Berlin

28/05/2024    

The Digest
Pickle Bar with Slavs and Tatars
Kunstraum MEMPHIS, Linz, Austria

18/02/2024     

Hairpin Beneath 钗之后
Pols, Valencia, Spain
02/02-03/03/2024     

Spring Exhibition 2024
Kunsthal Charlottenborg Forårsudstillingen, Copenhagen, Denmark
18/01/2024      
Pickle Bar presents
West Den Haag, the Hague, The Netherlands
15/11/2023     

Tea Room Relay
Delfina Foundation, London, the UK
28/10/2023       

THANK YOU!
Pickle Bar, Berlin, Germany


SculptureCenter,
New York, the United State

about the show
For In Practice, Zishi Han and Wei Yang present a new phase of their ongoing collaborative research project into historical Chinese homoerotic literature, intertwining multiple narratives that explore queer existences in China and of Chinese diaspora. Emerging from their shared interests in the power dynamics inherent in desire and intimacy, the artists’ point of departure is their own translation of
the late Ming dynasty anthology of homoerotic stories 弁而釵 (Biàn ér chai) by the pseudonymous “The Moon-Heart Master of the Drunken West Lake,” the title of which suggests the action of a man removing his ceremonial headgear and donning a woman’s hairpin.

Han and Yang’s performance-and-video works loosely interpret and transposes the text’s storylines (notably, of an affair between a student and a disguised academician, expressed here in conversations between the student and a close companion) to dwell amidst the blurry boundary between the fictional and the biographical, while drawing on a variety of Chinese historical and contemporary cultural practices, such as poetry, Chinese Opera, literati landscape painting, Danmei literature, C-pop and reality TV shows.

Their exhibition includes a new video alongside sculptures of an overhead net and a fallen gong, creating a visual pun (legible in Mandarin) that plays on the idiomatic impasse of being caught between “two nets,” one in the sky and one on the ground.

at Sculpture Center, New York
until March 24, 2025










Installation View, In Practice: Zishi Han and Wei Yang at Sculpture Center, New York, 2025. 
Courtesy: the artists. Photo: Charles Benton





Zishi Han, xoxo, 2025, In Practice: Zishi Han and Wei Yang at Sculpture Center, New York, 2025.
Courtesy: the artists. Photo: Charles Benton



Wei Yang, gong gurl, 2025, In Practice: Zishi Han and Wei Yang at Sculpture Center, New York, 2025.
Courtesy: the artists. Photo: Charles Benton





Wei Yang, gong gurl (details)




Tropez,
Berlin, Germany

about the show

produced by Zishi Han and Wei Yang,
performed by Zishi Han and Antone Liu









Ink Agop for Tropez

Kunstraum MEMPHIS,
Linz, Austria

about the show










photo by Memphis


pols,
Valencia, Spain





photo by Luis San Gregorio









Spring Exhibition 2024
Kunsthal Charlottenborg,
Copenhagen, Denmark


about the show



photo by Christian Ravn Brems






photo by Jenny Sundby

Pickle Bar presents
West Den Haag,
Den Haag, the Netherlands






 







photo by Dana LaMonda, West Den Haag









photo by Augustina Cai

Tea Room Relay
Delfina Foundation,
London, The UK







photo by Augustine Paredes






THANK YOU!
Pickle Bar,
Berlin, Germany











Photo by Augustine Paredes