The Long-Run Return

In 1988, sculptor Wu Shaoxiang organized a frantic rock band tour through China for a then-popular Austrian outfit named Blues Breaker. He was part of a generation that broadened the tonality of the times, roaring and vital, emanating from the center of a radical intellectual maelstrom. A year later, Wu emigrated to Austria.

The move would come to represent a major shift in the satiric fictions Wu plays with in his forms. With a career spread over decades, Wu has embraced and mastered a critique of social dynamics striking a precarious balance between immovable institutional obstacles and an instinct to upend.