Booth: 1.M28 | Emergence Sector
Venue: Grand Palais, Paris, France
Blindspot Gallery is pleased to present for its first-time participation in Art Basel Paris 2025 (Booth 1.M28) the solo exhibition of Chinese papercut artist Xiyadie in the fair’s Emergence Sector. The booth features his newest large-scale papercuts and a group of never-before-seen works, many of which were made in the 1990s and early 2000s.
Xiyadie grew up learning the traditional folk craft of Chinese papercutting from his mother and elderly women in his village, using the ancient art form to narrate his journey coming out of rural China as a homosexual person. His works are part memoir part fantasy, every sheet a vignette that tells the story of homosexual relationships. In 2010, Xiyadie had his first solo exhibition in Beijing’s now-defunct LGBT Center, introducing his works to the art public. Nonetheless, he continued to stand within the fringes of the art circle, making a living as a migrant worker in Beijing. It was not until 2018 that his works were exhibited for the first time in a commercial gallery, marking the gradual recognition of him as an artist. Xiyadie had his first institutional solo exhibition in New York at The Drawing Center in 2023, and in 2024, he was invited to participate in the Main Exhibition of the 60th Venice Biennale, further propelling him onto the international art stage. “In spite of recent attention, because he is self-taught and his papercuts were produced outside mechanisms of the contemporary art world, his work [had] not been adequately contextualized in the contemporary art discourse,” remarked Rosario Guiraldes, co-curator of his Drawing Center solo.
Xiyadie had never received formal art academy training. His visual sensibility partly stems from his grandfather’s garden during his formative years, where he found himself surrounded by flowers and butterflies. After attending a middle school, he went to work in the fields, harvesting apples, wheat, sweet potatoes and corn. Despite recognition as an artist, he still refers to himself as a farmer, a man of the yellow earth. His sense of belonging remains tied to the yellow soilland, this yearning permeating his creations.
