This November will see the launch of the new Shanghai artist residency and exhibition space Cheruby House. The venue will open on 8 November, ahead Shanghai Art Week (10-16 November), with a solo show of its first resident, the Mexican artist and designer Bárbara Sánchez-Kane.
Sánchez-Kane subverts military machismo through sculptures, paintings, text and clothes; his interdisciplinary practice exemplifies the mission of Cheruby House, which interweaves art and fashion, says its founder, the Chinese collector Cherry Xu. “Bárbara’s practice embodies many of [our] core concerns: identity, performance, gender and sexuality, fashion as material and narrative.” His work “invites a conversation about how culture, national identity, gender, and garment all intertwine”.
“Fashion offers metaphors, gestures, and temporality,” Xu says. Its discourses “can shift questions around visibility and value more quickly traditional art world discourses can achieve. It is a powerful lever”. Cheruby House is located at 758 Changle Lu in a 1939 heritage building, designed by the Hua Gai architectural firm for the banker Ye Jingkui.
Cheruby House, Shanghai
© Burn Li. Courtesy of Cheruby
The centre will host three residencies and shows per year, with the multidisciplinary Thai artist Tanat Teeradakorn slated for 2026. Xu envisions the project as more interdisciplinary than the city’s existing spaces merging art and fashion, such as exhibition venues backed by brands like Prada and Icicle. Since 2020 Xu has sought out emerging artists experimenting in the intersections between “clothing, identity, performance, or materiality”. Her time studying abroad, and a 2024 collector residency at the Delfina Foundation, revealed some of the gaps in her hometown scene—"what support systems didn’t yet exist here, what kinds of cross-cultural and cross-discipline conversations were missing," she says.
The long-term goal of Cheruby House, Xu continues, is to "expand the network of collaborators globally, including artists, designers, and curators”, including with internationally collaborative co-productions. She envisions possible exchanges with similar centres in Asia, Europe and globally, perhaps incorporating remote digital activities. “The idea is to keep balancing local rootedness in Shanghai with a cosmopolitan sensibility, so the work is both globally resonant and attuned to place.”