THE BLANC and Shanghai-based Nan Ke Gallery to Present Show Me How to Fly Away, Inaugural Presentation for THE BLANC Exchange
THE BLANC and Shanghai-based Nan Ke Gallery to Present
Show Me How to Fly Away
Inaugural Presentation for THE BLANC Exchange
A New Series Inviting International Galleries to Co-Present Exhibitions
Liu Xuan, Sound is Fact, Music is Fiction #3 (2026).
THE BLANC
15 E 40th Street, New York, NY 10016
Opening reception: February 19, 2026, 6 – 8pm
New York, NY — April 30, 2026 — THE BLANC is pleased to present Show Me How To Fly Away, a group exhibition of nine emerging contemporary artists from Shanghai presented in partnership with Nan Ke Gallery. Show Me How To Fly Away presents the inaugural installment of THE BLANC Exchange, a new initiative in which THE BLANC partners with international galleries to co-present exhibitions in its New York spaces, bridging the distance between global art capitals.
Co-curated by Leo Yuan, Gallery Director of THE BLANC, and Otto Neu, Founder and Director of Nan Ke Gallery, Show Me How To Fly Away assembles over twenty works spanning painting, sculpture, video, and installation. The exhibition title evokes art’s capacity to transport viewers; an imaginative migration that reflects the spirit of the Exchange.
As opposed to the short-term and transactional context of art fairs, THE BLANC Exchange invites curators from international galleries to present a selection of their artists in a longer term, site-specific exhibition, letting the artists’ work breathe in a more natural, contemplative space.
In his recent paintings, Killion Huang (b. 1999) offers a close look at queer identity and intimacy in contemporary China. Emotional connections within queer relationships in contemporary China become the site where identity takes shape—not as something defined by labels, but continuously formed through relational dynamics. The paintings provide a window into these tender moments of connection.
Joyce Chonghui Wu (b.1994) explores overlooked fragments of urban life and uses textiles and stitching to reassemble a personal archive of collected images, fragments, and memories. Her work weaves these disparate elements into layered narratives that explore the heterogeneity of everyday life and the nuances of multicultural experience.
The metaphor of “migration” takes a more tangible form in Liu Xuan’s (b. 1991) installation Sound is Fact, Music is Fiction #3. This site-specific version of the work features a bundle of black balloons ensnared in wires and held down by a retired manhole cover sourced from Shanghai. The audience can step on the cover, which produces an ambient sound.
Yang Di’s (b. 1990) video, Safe Word, is based on a journey to Mars, projecting individual experience into a speculative future, allowing reality to be re-perceived through constructed scenarios.
Having lived in New York for several years, Bai Mengfan (b. 1994) brings two works that continue her depiction of the complex entanglement of urban flows, financial circulation, and architectural structures. Her refined surfaces, containing traces of human impact on the surrounding environment, capture moments of quiet intensity and poetic intrigue.
Xie Lingrou (b. 1999) presents interior scenes that juxtapose portraiture with delicate objects such as flowers and glass. Her dark-toned oil compositions present an ephemeral, surreal quality that summons memories layered over the passage of time.
Likewise, Yu Wenjie (b. 1997) layers painting into a palimpsest of mixed media that incorporates paint, fabric, sand and varieties of paper to create pastel-toned compositions that explore the tension between fragility and structure.
Zhou Meng’s (b. 1992) small-scale ink works on paper, depicting layered characters, are reminiscent of Chinese inkwash paintings. The works on paper are presented next to compact-size sculptures made from fossil materials, situating Zhou’s work within an expanded anthropological and mythological context, where image and material together carry traces of time and cultural imagination.
Wu Muhan (b. 1997), by contrast, employs a restrained minimalist sculptural language, combining industrial components with everyday objects to produce forms charged with perceptual tension, negotiating between systemic logic and individual experience.
Show Me How to Fly Away will be on view May 15 through June 27, 2026, in THE BLANC’s ground floor gallery. An opening reception will be held from 6pm – 8pm on May 15, 2026. On Thursday, May 21 at 6:30pm, THE BLANC will host a panel with author and curator Barbara Pollack alongside Otto Neu, Joyce Chonghui Wu, and Leo Yuan.
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About THE BLANC
Founded in 2021, THE BLANC is a contemporary art space that provides a “blank slate” to encourage interdisciplinary exchange and to nurture creative talent. THE BLANC occupies five stories of a historic building in Midtown Manhattan, with a ground-floor gallery program dedicated to international artists, emerging practitioners with established bodies of work, and artists who have not previously exhibited in New York City. In addition to its exhibition program, THE BLANC offers artist studio spaces and hosts panel talks, workshops, and regular performances. For more information, please visit www.theblanc.art.
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For images, further background, or interviews, please contact:
Katrina Stewart
Account Manager, Visual Arts
Blue Medium
T: +1-212-675-1800
katrina@bluemedium.com