For his solo exhibition, Li Ran will place his latest work, An Intermezzo, Perhaps, at the heart of the presentation, situating it within the Beiqiu Museum of Contemporary Art, a labyrinthine civil defense space marked by historical traces. Within this intricate setting, he will reconfigure and stage a selection of his most significant works to date, spanning moving image, painting, installation, performance, and text. Through this reconfiguration, the artist may infuse his body of work with new meanings and interconnections. In this sense, the exhibition carries a retrospective gaze. “The age of exhibitions appears to be over,” the artist muses. Once, exhibitions functioned as a key dramaturgical device—a pivotal stage construct—within the grand intermezzo of contemporary Chinese art. But today, as a prescribed act of the artist, how is an exhibition to be performed? Taking a step back—from Beijing to Shanghai, from Shanghai to London, to Nanjing, and perhaps soon, to an upcoming exhibition in Los Angeles—each of these exhibitions seems to unfold as yet another scripted transition in the artist’s evolving stage. Between acts, between intermezzi, a series of new exhibitions will rise.