Shu Lea Cheang. Kiss Kiss Kill Kill

The first institutional survey exhibition of Shu Lea Cheang (b. 1954, Tainan, Taiwan) takes the taiwanese-american artist’s first feature film Fresh Kill (1994) as a starting point, presenting the artist and filmmaker’s world-building practices and updating works from the past three decades.

Cheang moved to New York City in the 1980s, where she joined the vibrant scene of independent cinema and started experimenting with video, live TV, and network technologies. Since the 1990s, her work has challenged and furthered our understanding of digital culture. Cheang anticipated the advance of alternative currencies, investigated gamified societies, and probed biotechnologies. Her works often develop over several years through different stages and media, including video, installation, performance, and various forms of cinema.

The exhibition updates works and artefacts into new landscape formations extending through four gallery spaces. Trash appears as a primary theme that leads Cheang’s investigation into the entanglement of biosphere and technosphere. Each gallery is its own world in which internet-based installation and software interaction invite the audience to explore and play.

“KI$$ KI$$” reimagines the exhibition as a transformative journey or a “machine of experience”. From a different angle, but in dialogue with the ongoing exhibition of Philippe Parreno, Shu Lea Cheang’s daring science-fiction narratives focus on non-human intelligences, both natural and artificial. Engaging with new and ancient technologies, the exhibition continues our engagement with contemporary transmedia art practices, following exhibitions by Dumb Type, Tony Cokes, and WangShui.

Curated by Sarah Johanna Theurer with Laila Wu.

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Exhibition film on „Shu Lea Cheang. KI$$ KI$$“

Film Screenings at Theatiner Kino and at the Auditorium 8.–22.6.25

In conjunction with the exhibition and in collaboration with the Cultural Ministry of Taiwan and the MUNICH INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL Haus der Kunst is presenting a selection of Shu Lea Cheang’s seminal films at Theatiner Kino. The first evening on 8.6.25 with films I.K.U. (2000) and UKI (2023) delves into themes of technology, sexuality, and identity, offering a provocative exploration of our digital and corporeal realities. With an introduction by the artist and producer Jürgen Brüning. The second evening on 21.6.25 features the experimental short Sex Fish (1993) followed by Fresh Kill (1994), Cheang’s debut feature which also serves as a starting point for her survey exhibition. The “eco-cyber-noia” film is an inventive critique of toxic capitalism and digital surveillance.

The politics of image (and the image of politics) is a central theme in Cheang’s work and can be further explored in a special video installation of Cheang’s community television productions How History was Wounded (1989) and Making News, Making History (1989), on view at the Auditorium of Haus der Kunst from 8.–22.6.25. Admission is free.

Research project “Awe in Immersive Art for Societal Transformation”

How can immersive art drive collective change? This is the focus of the international research project “Awe in Immersive Art for Societal Transformation,” led by Civic Interaction Design at Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences. We would be delighted if you could support the project and participate in the survey after your visit to the exhibition “KI$$ KI$$.”

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Shu Lea Cheang on “KI$$ KI$$”

For their generous support of the exhibition we thank LG Electronics, IT Business.

The screenings are organised in collaboration with MUNICH INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL. The installation is supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Chinese Republic (Taiwan).

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