This Moment is Perfect, Let’s Sing Now: The Art of He Duoling to Open at Shenzhen Art Museum
We are honored to announce that This Moment is Perfect, Let’s Sing Now: The Art of He Duoling will officially open on March 15, 2026, at the Shenzhen Art Museum. Organized by Shenzhen Art Museum, co-organized by YING Center For Contemporary Art, the exhibition is jointly curated by three cross-disciplinary cultural practitioners—Mr. Xu Zhiyuan, Mr. Yuan Hong, and Ms. Zhao Jianying. From the three interrelated dimensions of research, perception, and thought, the exhibition aims to systematically trace and illuminate artist He Duoling’s artistic journey from the 1970s to the present, spanning more than half a century.
Born in 1948 in Chengdu, He Duoling is widely regarded as one of the most representative and poetically attuned figures in the history of Contemporary Chinese Art. Beginning his practice in an era of intellectual awakening, he has consistently maintained a calm and independent stance, persistently probing the layered depths of life, nature, and emotion. Beyond his achievements in painting, He’s talents extend across literature, music, and architecture. His profound humanistic grounding, together with a relaxed yet incisive personal charisma, has made him a singular standard-bearer within the contemporary art world. In recent years, through long-form humanistic interview programs, He has entered a broader public view; his composed and self-contained way of living has become a cultural figure for younger generations. He moves audiences not only through his artworks but also through a sincere, unforced approach to life—offering, in an anxious age, a quiet form of spiritual counsel: slow down, face oneself honestly, and devote attention to what one truly loves—this, too, can lead to depth and richness of life.
The theme This Moment is Perfect, Let’s Sing Now may be understood as an affectionate call to reclaim the present moment amid the accelerated currents of modernity, where one is perpetually “running out of time.” This “now” bears personal memory and lived experience of nature, while also rooting itself in art-historical traditions and cross-civilizational dialogue—weighty, yet vividly alive. The exhibition poses a deeper question: in a world shaped by grand narratives and governed by algorithmic logic, is it still possible for individuals to reclaim time as their own—and if so, how? How might one sing a life that is both free and profound? Through more than sixty years of steady, contemplative practice, He Duoling offers a luminous and affirmative answer.
The exhibition unfolds through multiple thematic sections, including “The Deferral of Youth” “The Visage of the Outsiders” “The Internalized Exotic” “The Embodiment of Melancholy” “Architecture as Method” and “The Technique of Sensibility”. Notably, works connected to music and sound will run throughout the exhibition, such as the 1970s painting We Once Sang This Song. In He Duoling’s artistic universe, music and painting are not two separate forms, but rather different manifestations of the same act of “singing.”
Featuring more than one hundred major artworks by the artist, the exhibition offers a comprehensive view of the trajectory of He Duoling’s artistic life. Visitors will encounter not only his most influential masterpieces, but also—presented together for the first time—a substantial selection of drafts, manuscripts, and related archival materials, revealing the pathways of thought from the first spark of insight to the final realization. In doing so, audiences are granted a rare glimpse into how a sincere artist, using the brush as his vessel, has navigated—alone yet steadfastly—the current of his time, distilling his gaze upon existence and his lament for transience into images of enduring poetic force.
PREFACE
The exhibition title This Moment is Perfect, Let’s Sing Now comes from a fleeting, spontaneous moment in He Duoling’s life. After a hotpot gathering, when the hustle and bustle of the meal still lingered, friends suggested going to karaoke to continue the fun. Without thinking, he blurted out, “The moment is perfect, let’s sing now.” And then, without any preparation, he really started singing. This casual remark, like a small gift that life hands you unexpectedly, carries a sense of ease and freedom, and became the inspiration for the exhibition’s name.
The curatorial team—Xu Zhiyuan, Yuan Hong, and Zhao Jianying—comes from different fields: Culture, Performance, and Contemporary Art. In this exhibition, we aspire to create a space for dialogue across contexts, starting from the intersection of history of thought, the formation of sensory experience, and case studies in art history. Through a series of conceptually charged thematic units, we historicize and reframe He Duoling’s half-century-long artistic practice, seeking to uncover layers of his work that often remain unspoken, and to map the depth of his inner and spiritual landscape.
In the sections “The Deferral of Youth” and “The Embodiment of Melancholy”, we explore how He Duoling revisits the recurring motifs of “youth” and “women.” Youth in his paintings is not a mere footnote or a copy of an aesthetic model; it is an unfinished, ongoing spiritual event. The melancholic female figures might be seen as silent echoes beyond the context of history. Through a feminine perspective and in the name of youth, he transforms unspeakable experiences of the era, the passage of time, and a sensuous, almost melancholic literary sensibility into a restrained yet enduring visual form. What emerges is like a quiet clearing carved out within the homogenized space of history—a spiritual refuge where one can breathe freely.
In this way, He Duoling’s work carries a strong inward-looking historical awareness. In the units “The Visage of the Outsiders” and “The Internalized Exotic”, whether depicting Yi people in the Daliangshan wilderness stripped of ethnographic and social narratives, or portraying the Russian forests as a spiritual resource for a generation of Chinese intellectuals, we see his hidden coordinates for positioning himself within modernity. It is the gaze of an “outsider” in history—resisting homogenization through distance and reflection. Through his aesthetic detachment from reality and his internalization of the dark, compassionate aspects of Russian culture, he builds a mental defense against historical pressure and existential emptiness.
Beneath the sensual and poetic surfaces of his work lies a rigorously formalized method. “Architecture as Method” shows his exploration of the boundaries between space and painting. Structural awareness becomes his internal lens for understanding the world, and through strict self-restraint, he approaches an essential freedom. This precision also appears in his “technique of sensibility”: within the materiality of Western oil paint, he finds a path to translate the classical Chinese aesthetic of Qiyun (spirit resonance) into visual terms. In his careful control of brushwork, technique is no longer a mere tool—it becomes part of an organic life form with historical resonance and breathing rhythm.
Running through all of this is his self-aware sense of position, humorously described in his Chengdu dialect as being “Suo Bian Bian.” Across the shifting currents of artistic movements and intellectual trends over the past decades, He Duoling seems to have deliberately kept to the margins. Rather than evasion, this stance is more of an active, chosen distance: by maintaining distance, he preserves autonomy of spirit and safeguards his inner measure. In today’s world, where efficiency and the pressures of the rat race dominate, his refusal to simply go with the flow, his insistence on creating something authentically his own, offers the younger generation a reference point—a way, amid all the noise, to find our own footing again.
“Let’s sing now.” Between the urgency of time and the lightness of being, He Duoling offers an aesthetic response to reality, history, and the future through his brush and his life. His work becomes an effort to inhabit the present fully, resisting the relentless rush of modernity that seems to leave us breathless. It reminds us of a fundamental question: in a world driven by time, how do we reclaim it—and how, in this moment, do we sing a song that is truly our own? Through this exhibition, we invite everyone into He Duoling’s intellectual world and visual theater, to quietly listen to the enduring echoes of youth, poetry, resistance, and freedom emerging from the fractures of history and memory.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
He Duoling is a prominent figure in the development of Contemporary Chinese Art. He rose to fame in the 1980s and his artworks such as Spring breeze has awakened, Youth and The Crow is Beautiful have brought a fresh visual experience to viewers and caused a sensation in the art scene. During his artistic life spanning over four decades, He has always lived in Chengdu, Sichuan province—the city where he was born, except for a short journey to America. Instead of yearning for the so-called “centre”, He Duoling chose to stay at the periphery and adhere to his artistic path. Distancing himself from the bustling, chaotic and restrictive “centre”, he instead delved into his own world without any distraction and roamed the realm of art in response to the call of beauty, and reached his self-determined centre in total freedom and relaxation. Drawing deeply from both Chinese and Western painting, while remaining grounded in his own tradition yet open to transformation, He has acquired exquisite painting skills and developed an elegant and poetic, simple yet mysterious painting style.
ABOUT THE CURATORS
Xu Zhiyuan, Writer, Founder of OW Space, Chief creator of 13TALKS. Xu graduated from the Department of Computer Science at Peking University and previously served as a visiting scholar at the University of Cambridge and the University of California, Berkeley.Since 2001, Xu has published nearly 20 books in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, and his works have been translated into multiple languages, including English, French, and Korean. His most notable works include Unexpected Journey, World of a Stranger, and Born in the 1970s. Currently, he is in the process of writing a five-volume biography of Liang Qichao, with the first two volumes, Liang Qichao: A Young Reformer (1873-1898) and Liang Qichao: Exile (1898-1903), already published. Xu has also been involved in the founding and publication of various newspapers and magazines, including The Economic Observer, Bloomberg Businessweek (Chinese Version), and One-way Street. Besides writing, Xu plays a significant role in creating the in-depth interview-style documentary series 13TALKS (Seasons 1-9). With Xu serving as a compere, the documentary has reverberated powerfully in society, garnering widespread attention and discussion.He has Participated in the planning of the exhibition He Duoling: The Need for Play at YING Center For Contemporary Art.
Yuan Hong is a film and television actor in China and the founder and host of "Art Knock" (The Art Brain), an art-focused social media channel. Born in Wuhan, Hubei Province, in 1982, he graduated from the Performance Department of Shanghai Theatre Academy (class of 2001). Yuan is widely recognized for his roles in numerous period dramas and contemporary series, including The Imperial Academy (Shang Shu Fang), The Young Warriors (Shao Nian Yang Jia Jiang), The Legend of the Condor Heroes (She Diao Ying Xiong Zhuan), Scarlet Heart (Bu Bu Jing Xin), The Love Equation (Hua Xu Yin zhi Jue Ai Zhi Cheng), The Ordinary World (Ping Fan De Shi Jie), The Tree of Life (Sheng Ming Shu), Trending Topic (Re Sou), Fire on the Plain (Ping Yuan Shang De Huo Yan), and Send Me to the Clouds (Song Wo Shang Qing Yun), In recent years, while continuing his acting career, Yuan has actively expanded his engagement with the arts in the public sphere. Positioning himself as an "art door-opener ", he uses social media and curation to connect the art world with a broader audience. In 2023, he founded and began hosting "Art Knock", a channel dedicated to making art more accessible through educational content and interviews with artists. As the host, Yuan approaches his work from the perspective of an art enthusiast outside the inner art circle, inviting viewers into the creative worlds and daily lives of artists such as He Duoling, while also offering guided experiences of art fairs and exhibitions.
Zhao Jianying is a patron of contemporary art, the founder of YING Center For Contemporary Art and the editor-in-chief of the YING: Contemporary Chinese Art Research Program series. She has edited and published many art-historical monographs on Contemporary Chinese Art, including BEIJING ABSTRACT, Street of Eternal Happiness, Millennium After Millennium, and Echoes of the Wind, and has supported a number of case-study projects, such as He Duoling: The Need for Play, ON TAO, TRACING THE ORIGIN: The Art of Xu Lei and You Han and Yu Youhan: Yu Youhan’s Early Experience and Later Style. Since 2013, YING Center, under Zhao’s leadership, has widely collaborated with well-known artists and researchers from China and abroad, and supported art plans of many artists and curators, including investigative curation, experimental art projects, art writing, independent publishing, performance, screening, lectures, etc. The exhibition that she held covers a variety of media such as painting, video, installation, sculpture. She also becomes the links between artistic creation and collectors, art gallery and commercial crossover project.
