Following Tina Keng Gallery’s exceptional success at Art Basel Hong Kong 2026—where works by Su Xiaobai garnered intense interest from prominent Asian collectors and sold out completely, marking the gallery’s best record in thirteen years of participation—one pivotal piece, Interstice-5, has emerged as the most symbolic focal point of the exhibition.
Originally held in the Su Xiaobai Foundation collection, this work was strategically debuted at Art Basel Hong Kong, Asia’s premier international art platform, as a vital preview for the 2026 Venice Biennale official collateral event, Su Xiaobai’s Alchemical Universe. Its acquisition by a major Asian collector underscores how Su’s practice continues to resonate deeply between international academic discourse and the Asian collecting landscape.
As a leading figure in contemporary Chinese abstraction, Su Xiaobai has spent decades developing a unique painterly language centered on lacquer, blending materiality, temporality, and spirituality. Interstice-5 is dominated by a deep, introspective blue. Through layered lacquer and a structured composition, it creates a rhythm akin to breathing, permeating, and pausing. The work is neither a simple monochrome nor a repetitive geometric order; instead, through a process of repeated covering and revealing, it constructs a meditative viewing experience. The "interstice" is not merely a visual separation, but a gap slowly opened between material, time, and perception.
Understanding this piece within the context of the 2022 exhibition Su Xiaobai: And Blue reveals a deeper significance. That exhibition used "blue" as a thread to lead viewers into Su’s lifelong reflections on color, memory, and spirituality. In the introductory essay "Words from a Companion," the artist’s wife, Zhang Jun, wrote: "The blue Su Xiaobai paints is not actually a painting." She also noted: "No one can paint a blue that has body temperature." These words precisely capture how Su’s blue transcends mere pigment, becoming an existence generated by memory, observation, physical sensation, and time. Interstice-5 represents the continuation and deepening of this specific "blue."
The debut of Interstice-5 in Hong Kong highlights its critical position in Su’s recent oeuvre and sets the stage for a major international calendar. From May 9 to November 22, 2026, Su will present the official collateral exhibition Su Xiaobai’s Alchemical Universe at the historic Palazzo Soranzo Van Axel in Venice. Jointly presented by the Su Xiaobai Foundation and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), the exhibition is curated by Stephen Little (Curator of Chinese Art, LACMA) with exhibition design by architect Kulapat Yantrasast (WHY Architecture). It will systematically present Su’s core lacquer-based developments since 2003.
Furthermore, Su Xiaobai will also be featured at Art Basel in Basel this June. From the opening in Hong Kong to the major museum-level exhibition in Venice and the global spotlight in Basel, Su Xiaobai’s extensive exhibition plans for 2026 will undoubtedly become a highly anticipated chapter in the global art world.
