EXPO CHICAGO: Tai Xiangzhou

XIANGZHOU 泰祥洲

EXPO Chicago 2026 | April 9 – 12, 2026

TAI XIANGZHOU 泰祥洲

b. 1968, Yinchuan, Ningxia, China

Lives and works in Beijing, China

Born in 1968 to a scholarly family in Yinchuan, the former capital of the Tangut Xixia kingdom, Tai Xiangzhou studied calligraphy from childhood under the exiled master Hu Gongshi and pursued the study of Chinese traditional culture with the prominent mentor Feng Qiyong. He later earned a doctorate from Tsinghua University, where his dissertation Celestial Tales retraced the history of Chinese landscape representations through their origins in classical cosmology—the elaborate systems of correspondence between the celestial, terrestrial, and human realms. He also spent time as a paintings conservator at the Palace Museum in Beijing, where he became intimately familiar with traditional techniques and materials.

Tai’s ink constellations begin as blots of ink from a large brush on raw silk—often antique silks prepared according to ancient methods—that unpredictably bleed across the fibers before resolving into mythic, cosmological imagery. His paintings evoke the monumental grandeur of Song Dynasty landscape painting while asking, speculatively, what a Song landscape would look like if it encompassed the vastly expanded scope of contemporary knowledge about the universe. Rocks fly through space, landscapes turn abstract, perspective is reimagined as it might exist in another realm or another time. Calligraphic pairings extend their accompanying imagery with inscriptions from classics of Chinese literature, often excerpted from the early Han Dynasty book Huai Nan Zi (淮南子).

Delimiting the Four Seasons and Attuning the Five Phases 節四時而調五行, 2023

Ink on silk

14.4 x 21 in | 36.6 x 53 cm

Qilins Freely Wandering 馮夷出巡, 2023

Ink on silk

14 1/2 x 20 7/8 in | 36.8 x 53.1 cm

Taurus Star 金牛之星, 2023

Ink on silk

14 1/2 x 20 7/8 in | 36.8 x 53.1 cm

EXPO Chicago 2026 | April 9 – 12, 2026

Feng Yi Expedition 馮夷出巡, 2023

Ink on silk

14 1/2 x 20 7/8 in | 36.8 x 53.1 cm

the Four Directions and Dividing the Eight End Points 廓四方柝八極

Parallel Universe No.5 - Kang Chi, Tian Tian, She Ti

平行宇宙之五 —— 亢池、 天田 、摄提, 2023

Ink on silk

78.7 x 39.4 in | 199.9 x 100.1 cm (per panel)

Extending the Four Directions and Dividing the Eight End Points 廓四方柝八極, 2023 Ink on silk

12 x 55 in | 30.48 x 139.7 cm

Detail: TAI XIANGZHOU 泰祥洲, Extending the Four Directions and Dividing the Eight End Points 廓四方柝八極, 2023

The Auspiciousness of Wind and Thunder 風雷之吉, 2023 Ink on silk

14.4 x 21 in | 36.6 x 53 cm

Traversing Mountains and Rivers, Striding over Mount Kunlun 經紀山川,蹈騰昆侖, 2023

Ink on silk

14.4 x 21 in | 36.6 x 53 cm

Taurus Star 金牛之星, 2023

Ink on silk

14.4 x 21 in | 36.6 x 53 cm

Water of Goodness 上善之水, 2023

Ink on silk

14.4 x 21 in | 36.6 x 53 cm

35.8 x 24.2 in | 90.932 x 61.468 cm

Ink on silk

35.8 x 24.2 in | 90.932 x 61.468 cm

1939–2023; Shanghai, China – Evanston, Illinois, USA

Selected Awards

1986 First Prize, National Calligraphy Competition for University Students, China

1989 Second Prize, Beijing Calligraphy Competition for University Students, China

2001 Highly Commended in Innovation, Industrial Panel Award, Media Design School, Auckland, New Zealand

2010 Excellence Award, Giant Cup Today National Art Students Annual Awards, Today Art Museum, Beijing, China

Selected Public Collections

Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

Brooklyn Museum, New York, NY, USA

Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA, USA

Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA

Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, USA

Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, MA, USA

Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT, USA

Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, NJ, USA

Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, MN, USA

Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, USA

Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, NC, USA

Oklahoma State University Museum of Art, Stillwater, OK, USA

Arthur M. Sackler Museum of Art and Archaeology, Peking University, Beijing, China

Tsinghua University Art Museum, Beijing, China

Zhonghua Book Company, Beijing, China

Exhibition Gallery of Civic and Municipal Affairs Bureau, Macau

Selected Solo Exhibitions

2026

Under Heaven and Beyond Form: Celestial Tales of Tai Xiangzhou, Fu Qiumeng Fine Art, New York, NY, USA

2025

Si Tian Jian: Tai Xiangzhou, Zhi Art Museum, Chengdu, China

Affirmation of Stone and Metal: Tai Xiangzhou’s Monumental Vision, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

2024–2025

A Far Journey: An Exhibition of Tai Xiangzhou’s Works in Tribute to the Han Dynasty Paintings of Mawangdui, Hunan Museum, Changsha, China

TAI XIANGZHOU 泰祥洲

1939–2023; Shanghai, China – Evanston, Illinois, USA

Selected Solo Exhibitions (cont.)

2023

Tai Xiangzhou: Kunlun Mountain, Qualia Contemporary Art, Palo Alto, CA, USA

2022

Galaxy Observation, Huaixuan, Beijing, China

2021

Cosmic Matter: From Nothing to Being, Fu Qiumeng Fine Art, New York, NY, USA

Cosmoscapes: Ink Paintings by Tai Xiangzhou, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

Ocean: Ink Works by Tai Xiangzhou, Four Seasons Hotel, Macau

Tai Xiangzhou Solo Exhibition Shanghai Salon, Christie’s Shanghai Art Space, Shanghai, China

2020

Tai Xiangzhou: A Retroactive New World, Can Art Centre, Beijing, China

2018

Tai Xiangzhou: Celestial Law, Tokyo Gallery+BTAP, Tokyo, Japan

2017

Tai Xiangzhou: Speculative Cosmologies, INK Studio, Beijing, China

2016

Celestial Tales, Yi&C Contemporary Art, Taipei, Taiwan

2015

Celestial Tales, Paul Kasmin Gallery, New York, NY, USA

2014

Knowing Heaven and Earth through Observation: Chinese Ink Paintings by Tai Xiangzhou, Exhibition Gallery of Civic and Municipal Affairs Bureau, Macau

2012

Mind Without Discrimination, Plum Blossoms Gallery, Hong Kong

Transcending Reality: New Ink Paintings by Tai Xiangzhou, The Chinese Porcelain Company, New York, NY, USA

2011

Homocentric Objective: Landscape Paintings of Tai Xiangzhou, Arthur M. Sackler Museum of Art and Archaeology, Peking University, Beijing, China

Celestial Tales: Ink Paintings by Tai Xiangzhou, 798 Art Bridge Gallery, Beijing, China

QUALIA CONTEMPORARY ART

Praised by renowned art historian Alexander Nemerov as “a hidden gem in Silicon Valley,” Qualia Contemporary Art presents a diverse program of emerging and established artists working across a wide range of media and is dedicated to facilitating dialogue between Asian and international contemporary practices.

Since opening in Fall 2020, the gallery has mounted over 30 exhibitions: highlights from these presentations include the U.S. debuts of Pan Hsinhua, Lyu Peng, and Xu Hongming; local artists like Younhee Paik, Stella Zhang, Nick Dong, and Joe Ferriso; and internationally-recognized artists including Paul DeMarinis, Guillermo Galindo, Yang Jiechang, and Wang Tiande.

The gallery has also collaborated with leading Chinese artists such as Xu Bing, Wang Dongling, Gu Wenda, and Gu Gan, as well as with prominent scholars including Alexander Nemerov, Richard Vinograd, Ouyang Jianghe, and Xie Xiaoze.