Xinhan Yú (b. 1996, Nanking, CHN)
Graduated in Pittura Arti Visive with a Master’s degree in Visual Arts at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna in 2022. He currently lives and works in Bologna.
Xinhan Yú works with video, installation, and image-based media. His practice focuses on power structures and institutional violence, while maintaining a consistent preference for rough textures, humor, and provocative forms of expression.
The childhood imagery, public authority, internet pop culture, and video game systems run through his practice. He uses these elements to examine the tension between personal experience, collective memory, and technological structures.
Humor and absurdity often appear on the surface of his works. Rather than relying on direct critique or emotional release, he constructs systems that appear calm, repetitive, and internally consistent, revealing how power is continuously reproduced and sustained within everyday visual and technical frameworks.
Since 2022, he has increasingly used game engines as a central method for video work, developing a body of work defined by closed structures rather than linear narratives. These systems often get stuck in loops or states of stagnation, turning the act of viewing itself into an experience shaped and disciplined by the system. The elements within these works no longer function as stable symbols. Through repeated use and ongoing transformation, they lose fixed meaning and become materials that can be operated, organized, and consumed.
In this framework, violence does not appear in a dramatic form. Instead, it is normalized through repetition, procedures, and rules. His work uses mass culture to expose the cold logic of modern control.
Solo:
Playground, curated by Yulia Tikhomirova, Nelumbo Open Project, Bologna, 2021
Playground - Trovarsi la Guerra in Giardino, curated by Gate 26A, in collaboration with TIST.situations, Gate 26A Gallery, Modena, 2022
Duo:
嗡嗡 Brum Brum, with Stefano Riboli, curated by Alessia Pietropinto, Spazio 15, Brescia, 2022
Xinhan Yú X Mandalaki X Antonini Milano, curated by N.51 Concept Gallery, Borromeo Palace, Milan, 2024
Selected Group Exhibitions:
Babele Rebuilt, curated by Moyu Yang & Chang Wang, UNTITLED project space, Berlin, 2026
Soft Assembly, curated by Josephine Fity & Jonathan Lieb, Oblong Space, Copenhagen, 2025
𝙐𝙣-𝙥𝙖𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙤𝙙𝙞𝙘 𝙍𝙚𝙘𝙪𝙧𝙧𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚, curated by Purist Gallery, London, 2025
Radical Rest - Cinemā Ōniro, curated by Captain Daddi, Okay Space, Athens, 2025
Babele, curated by Lucrezia Nardi, Spazio Musa, Torino, 2025
Arte = Capitale, curated by Magazzeno Art Gallery, Ravenna, 2024
The last off-site show on the Earth at Plague Space and Everywhere, curated by
Plague Space, Krasnodar, 2023Double& Duality, curated by Numero 51 Concept Gallery, Milan, 2023
ReA! Art Fair, curated by ReA! Team, Fabbrica del Vapore, Milan, 2023
An increasing black dent in the night sky, curated by Spassetun Gallery Space, Moscow, 2023
Exhibition of 22/23 Sessions finalists of the Laguna Art Prize, Arsenale North, Venice, 2023Perspectives, curated by CICA Museum, Gimpo, South Korea, 2023
Mitologie Digitali, curated by Silvia Vannacci, Contemporary Matters and Taizhou Contemporary Art Museum, Prato / Taizhou, 2022
Epilogo: Identità dissimili, curated by Luca Caccioni, Fondazione Carisbo, Bologna, 2022
Start-up, curated by Valerio Dehò, Fair Bologna, 2022
Vasca Corta, curated by Gabriele Tosi and Filippo Tappi, Localedue Art Space, Bologna, 2021
Sino-Italian Biennial Young Art: La Terra Quieta, curated by Hong Lingyi and Livia Giulliani, International Young Artists Association, online show, 2021
The Independent Spirit, curated by Wei Hongshan, Enlai Gallery, Beijing, 2019
Fissione e Mutazione, curated by Shuiding Gallery, Xiamen, 2019
Awards:
The 13th Edition Combat Prize, Vincitore Premio Galleria, Livorno, 2022