Panel Talk｜ Shanghai Stories

Nan Ke Gallery is pleased to announce a panel discussion presented in conjunction with the group exhibition Show Me How to Fly Away, co-organized with THE BLANC New York. The panel talk "Shanghai Stories: A Conversation with Friends in Art" brings together Nan Ke Gallery founder Otto Neu, artist Joyce Chonghui Wu, and co-curator Leo Yuan for a conversation centered on personal histories, urban experiences, and cross-cultural perspectives. Through their dialogue, the panel will explore the evolving relationship between the art worlds and everyday realities of Shanghai and New York.

 

Drawing from Otto Neu’s nearly 10 years of living and working in Shanghai, the discussion will reflect on the founding of Nan Ke Gallery and the transformations of China’s contemporary art scene over the past decade. Joyce Chonghui Wu will speak from the perspective of her multicultural upbringing, considering how identity, memory, and urban experience shape her artistic practice. As co-curator of the exhibition, Leo Yuan will also bring insights from working between New York and Shanghai, opening a broader discussion around contemporary art systems, modes of viewing, and international exchange.

 

Beyond comparing the artistic ecosystems and daily rhythms of the two cities, the conversation aims to offer a candid perspective on the unique strengths and future possibilities of China’s contemporary art landscape. At a moment when global cultural networks continue to shift, the panel seeks to rethink the relationship between city, culture, and artistic practice through a more personal and lived lens.

 

吴崇慧 Joyce Chonghui Wu

 

Joyce Chonghui Wu is a Chinese American artist born in Shanghai. Having studied and lived in Europe, China, and the United States, her work explores the sensorial perception of multicultural contexts through multidisciplinary media. Influenced by her background in fashion design, she often uses textiles as a creative medium, transferring subtle observations of everyday life onto fabric and assembling the layered textures of contemporary living through stitching.

 

Joyce has a habit of hoarding—collecting images, memories, objects, and unfinished works, which she stacks in various corners of her studio. Along the threads of inspiration, she weaves and rewrites these fragments like constructing sentences, telling stories of intimacy, individuality, and visual memory with both restraint and boldness.

 

袁政 Leo Yuan

 

Leo Yuan (b.1995, Hangzhou, China) is a curator and writer based in New York. He is Gallery Director at THE BLANC in New York and editor at Artnet News China. He holds a BA in art history from the University of Pennsylvania, an MA in art business from the Sotheby’s Institute of Art, New York, and an MA in art history from the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University. His writings can be found on Artnet, ARTnews China, Art Basel Stories, The Brooklyn Rail, among others. Before becoming a curator, Yuan had worked in the Development Department at the Guggenheim Museum in New York and in the 20th Century & Contemporary Art Department at Phillips. 

 

牛津 Otto Neu

Otto Neu (Niu Jin) is a curator and co-founder of Nan Ke Gallery. Since entering the field of contemporary art in 2017, he has worked with a number of galleries and art research institutions. In 2022, he co-founded Nan Ke Gallery, which is dedicated to discovering and supporting a new generation of Chinese artists, while continuously exploring the interconnections between art, social structures and gender contexts.

 

His curatorial practice focuses on geopolitics, constructing dialogues between individual experience and broader historical narratives through exhibitions. Selected curatorial projects include For the Lives We Couldn't Hold on to (2025, Nan Ke Gallery), Hanging Horizon Theatre (2025, SNAP Art Center), That’s How We Grow Up (2024, Nan Ke Gallery), and Eros Randomizer (2023, as part of La Petite Mort, Nan Ke Gallery).

 

Founded in 2021, THE BLANC is a contemporary art space that provides a “blank slate” to encourage interdisciplinary exchange and to nurture creative talent. THE BLANC occupies five stories of a historic building in Midtown Manhattan, with a ground-floor gallery program dedicated to international artists, emerging practitioners with established bodies of work, and artists who have not previously exhibited in New York City. In addition to its exhibition program, THE BLANC offers artist studio spaces and hosts panel talks, workshops, and regular performances.