Chin Tsao

• 20.03.–02.05.2026

Galerie Martin Janda is showing Chin Tsao's second solo exhibition PERIHELIA from 20th March until 2nd May 2026.

PERIHELIA presents two ceramic sculptures from The Mountain, an ongoing series examining vertical space in relation to sovereignty and force. The works reference the Handstein—a Central European decorative object produced within the Habsburg sphere from the sixteenth century onward, in which mined ore was shaped into miniature mountain formations and displayed as emblems of territorial power and divine entitlement to extraction.

The sculptures work with rising and falling as forces rather than movements—an upward reach toward an apex understood as destructive. The works form a single vertical image: the body in the full arc of that logic, from rupture at the base to stillness at the peak. 

Chin Tsao’s practice spans video, music, performance, and mixed-media sculpture (often incorporating ceramics and porcelain), weaving across historical eras while merging Eastern and Western aesthetic forms. Tsao responds to the unpredictable nature of our contemporary world, navigating themes ranging from the queer body to the exploitative dynamics of the global economic system as well as humanity’s anxieties and alienation relating to speculative futures. By deliberately engaging with mediums steeped in historical legacy, Chin Tsao’s practice navigates the encounter between Asian and European cultures, the evolving aesthetics of Eastern and Western craft traditions, and the layered historical contexts embedded within the medium. Simultaneously, it reflects the hybridization of styles shaped by globalization.