15 Years of Galleria Continua: To Be Continua

“For Mario, Maurizio and Lorenzo, culture is a meeting, it’s about making our differences a source of creativity, of beauty, of union and of love.”

These values embodied by Galleria Continua through the universal language of art have recently been subjected to a tremendous ordeal worldwide. However, art is still here and so are all the beautiful artworks regrouped for the anniversary exhibition of the gallery inaugurated last year. Now is the time “to be Continua”.

It was the first foreign gallery with an international program to open in Beijing, China in 2004, and subsequently in 2007 launched a new site for large-scale creations – Les Moulins – in the Parisian countryside and in 2015 opened a space in La Habana, Cuba devoted to cultural projects designed to overcome every frontier. With almost 30 years of practice, Galleria Continua remains faithful to its spirit of perpetual evolution and committed to developing public interest in contemporary art through its two values, generosity and altruism.

These two values, as well as the gallery’s close relationships to artist Chen Zhen and his wife Xu Min, led Galleria Continua to be the first major foreign gallery to arrive in China. The gallery is positioned in the famous 798 Art District, an area that used to be in the outskirts of the city and became since then one of the most visited places in China.

After 15 successful years, which include Galleria Continua’s participation in the first contemporary art fair in Beijing as well as the inaugural show featuring 16 artists from 5 continents, Galleria Continua in Beijing continues to bring important artists from all over the world for the first time to China.

To celebrate the 15th year Anniversary of the Beijing life of Galleria Continua, a very unique exhibition that started last October will continue until the end of summer, adding new interventions every month. The exhibition retraces the history of the gallery by bringing back the works of different artists who have been part of this story along with the major exhibitions that our space hosted for the first time here in China.

The exhibition is now expanding by dedicating some of the spaces to three more projects. One will continue its monthly intervention by Daniel Buren, changing the color of his site-specific work around the perimeter of the gallery. Two more artists, Kader Attia and Hans Op de Beeck will present a new video work every month; for the May opening, we will be showing “La Tour Robespierre” by Kader Attia and “The Thread” by Hans Op de Beeck.