Cheng Ran is a cross-media artist from Inner Mongolia, China. He participated in the artist residency program at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in the Netherlands from 2013 to 2014 and later founded Martin Goya Business, an art space, in 2017. Ran works across film, poetry, drama, word, and installation, often challenging space, structure, and object conceptions by mixing materials. Ran’s works address the existential state of the Chinese youth in the face of political and cultural globalisation, often reflecting his deep thoughts on universal themes such as boundary, distinction, and confrontation. His works encourage the audience to contemplate the poetics of nihilism, allowing them to shift between reality and imagination.
Ran has showcased his works at many prestigious venues such as the Sydney Opera House, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, among others. He has also exhibited at various biennials, including the 14th Istanbul Biennial and the 8th Shenzhen Sculpture Biennial. Cheng Ran’s solo exhibitions have taken place at New Museum in New York, the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (UCCA) in Beijing, the Tel Aviv Museum of Art in Tel Aviv, and the K11 Art Foundation in Hong Kong. The Artist features in collections including The Walther Collection, Germany, The Royal Academy of Visual Arts, Netherlands, and Erlenmeyer Foundation, Switzerland, and has won numerous awards including the Nomura Emerging Artist Award, 2019 and the Pierre Huber Prize, 2015.