DRAGON HUNTER - Li Xu Solo Exhibition

DRAGON HUNTER

Li Xu Solo Exhibition

 

Curated by Wang Yongxu

AAIE Center for Contemporary Art

Opening: 6:00 PM, November 28, 2025

Opening Day Performance: Barbara Uccelli — A Table Set

 

From November 28, 2025, AAIE presents Dragon Hunter, Li Xu's third solo exhibition at the AAIE. Curated by Wang Yongxu, the exhibition brings together over thirty recent works by the artist. The opening day will also feature the performance "A Table Set" by artist Barbara Uccelli.

 

As the thematic core of the exhibition, Li Xu reintroduces the motif of "dragon hunting" into a contemporary context. Starting from the classical Western narrative of Saint George and the Dragon, the artist introduces a significant change: the traditional male figure of Saint George is replaced by a female protagonist. This transformation represents not a simple reversal of traditional iconography, but a critical deconstruction of the gendered power structures present in myths and their images.

 

In this series of works, the center of Li Xu's research remains painting as an autonomous language. The theme of the dragon is a trigger, while the artist's true focus is on the construction of the image: compositional structure, color, imagined space, and the generative mechanisms of visual language. Each painting thus constitutes a self-sufficient system, allowing the viewer to explore different ways of interpreting it: through questions of culture, gender, or power, or through a purely pictorial reading, attentive to the work's rhythm and internal logic.

 

On the occasion of this solo exhibition, AAIE is also publishing the catalog Li Xu: From New York to Rome 2017–2024, which brings together forty-nine works created between 2017 and 2024. The volume can be consulted and purchased at the AAIE desk.

 

The exhibition will remain open until December 14, 2025. The public, collectors, and industry professionals are warmly invited to visit the exhibition and engage in a deeper dialogue with the artist.

 

“A Table Set” is a performance by artist Barbara Uccelli dedicated to the theme of gender violence. Through the everyday act of setting the table—a practice performed by many women in their homes—the artist transforms this action into a symbolic act: women become figures of care and resistance, even when everything around them seems to be falling apart.

 

Li Xu

Li Xu was born in Inner Mongolia, China, in 1970. He currently lives and works between Beijing, Tianjin (China), and New York (USA). He graduated from the Department of Oil Painting at the Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts in 1997; in 2004, he graduated from the Fourth Studio of the Department of Oil Painting at the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA); in 2012, he received his doctorate in oil painting from the Central Academy of Fine Arts.

Li Xu's works have been exhibited in numerous art institutions in China, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Norway, and other countries, including the National Art Museum of China, the Today Art Museum, the CAFA Art Museum, the Zhejiang Art Museum, the China Millennium Monument, the Grand Palais in Paris, the Palais des Congrès Art Museum, the National Art Hall in Cairo, and others. She has also participated in the Todi Biennale, the Cairo Biennale, the Nuvola Art Fair in Rome, and many other international events.

 

Barbara Uccelli

After graduating in Communication Sciences, Barbara Uccelli began an artistic training program, specializing in theater direction and choreography.

She entered the world of art through personal studies focused on the fusion of different forms of expression. Thus began a research focused no longer on the expressive medium but on the result, whose main elements of analysis are material, concept, and space. Themes such as femininity, environmental and social sustainability, the study of places, and the recovery of traditions become the sources of inspiration from which all her works originate. Her documentary research, developed through reading books and listening to oral histories, evolves into a static (photography, sculpture) or dynamic (performance, video, installation) artwork, and continues to explore new artistic approaches. She has held solo and group exhibitions in private and public spaces, both in Italy and abroad. She currently lives and works in Milan.

 

AAIE Center for Contemporary Art

Via Sermide 7, Rome 00182

www.aaie.art

info@aaie.art

 

Opening: November 28, 2025, 6:00 PM

 

Opening Hours:

November 28 – December 14, 2025

Tuesday to Saturday, 2:00 PM–6:00 PM

Free admission by reservation