Jan 19–Mar 24

4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, Sydney, Australia

The 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art will present the first retrospective of Chinese artist Xiao Lu. Spanning three decades of her career and centered on the experience of womanhood, the exhibition will be anchored by her notorious and highly misunderstood performance-installation Dialogue, in which she fired a gun during the landmark “China Avant/Garde” show in Beijing in 1989. Exploring the trajectory of her performance works and featuring a new commission, “Impossible Dialogue” will attempt to shed light on Xiao’s oeuvre in her own terms, taking a much-needed, closer look at her creations which have seldom moved out from under the baggage of art history.

Jan 25–31

Various locations, Colombo, Sri Lanka

Colombo’s annual interdisciplinary arts festival returns for its sixth edition this January. Taking place across various historical venues and cultural spaces in the city, the event invites more than 30 visual artists, filmmakers and musicians as well as scientific experts to examine the port city’s heritage as an East-West trade route. Encompassing contemporary literature, film and the performing arts, “Sea Change” will trace the links between historical maritime trade and the region’s cultural pluralism, in addition to tackling contemporary issues of ocean ecology. Among the curated displays will be “It Is Not the Seas That Scare Me,” an exhibition developed in collaboration with the publishing-based curatorial project Scroll, presenting the paper-based works of ten artists and collectives, including Jagath Weerasinghe, Ranjit Kandalgaonkar and Hira Nabi. 

Feb 16–May 12

Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zürich, Switzerland

Curated by the director of the Migros Museumfür Gegenwartskunst, Heike Munder, “Producing Futures” will attempt to fill the gap between the cyberfeminist projects of the 1990s and the causes championed by contemporary feminists in the post-internet era. Surveying how the concept of a techno-utopia has spurred various feminist approaches to working with cyberspace and new-media technologies, the exhibition brings together the works of 15 international artists who reflect on key issues of emancipation, gender justice and social equality. The presentation’s highlight will be a new work by the media art collective VNS Matrix, who wrote the 1991 Cyberfeminist Manifesto for the 21st Century. 

Feb 9–Mar 30

Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia

In “Current Iterations,” Brisbane-based artist Dale Harding probes oral histories and the contemporary experience of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people through the study of materials, colors and forms. Spanning various mediums such as painting, installation, sculpture and traditional craft, the display will feature new and recent works including Wall Composition in Bimbird and Reckitt’s Blue (2018), a work inspired by rock art sites in Queensland and a stenciling technique practiced by Harding’s ancestors. Co-commissioned by the Institute of Modern Art and Tate Liverpool, the stencil investigates female labor in Australia and the UK.

Feb 9–May 26

Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan

The sixth edition of the Roppongi Crossing triennial will look into the socioeconomic impacts of technology. Split into three parts—“Trying out Technology,” “Trying to Observe Society,” and “Trying to Connect Two”—“Connexions” includes some 25 Japanese artists and collectives, showcasing works that envision the ways in which advances in computation and AI may redefine our lives. Highlights include Hirakawa Norimichi’s Datum (2018), a digital work that abstracts images of landscapes using customized algorithms, and Hayashi Chiho’s video Artificial Lover & True Love (2017), which explores a new type of digital intimacy through a love story involving an AI robot.

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