Grant Recipients Ellsworth Kelly Award Visual Arts 2026

The Renaissance Society: Pan Daijing exhibition

Black and white portrait of Pan Daijing. Pan stands at an angle dressed in all black against a white textured wall. She looks off to the distance.
Photo by Dzhovani.
  • 2026 Ellsworth Kelly Award
  • Visual Arts
  • Pan Daijing
  • The Renaissance Society
  • Fall 2027
  • Chicago, IL

Artist Biography

Pan Daijing, born in Guiyang, China (1991), is a multidisciplinary artist working across moving image, sound, sculpture, and performance. Pan’s wide-ranging practice is driven by her interests in emotion, perception, ephemerality, and the visceral qualities of lived human experience. Her exhibitions prioritize site-responsiveness and shifts between different mediums, led by an improvisational sensibility that she first developed onstage as a genre-defying musician.

Pan has presented ambitious solo and group exhibitions and performances at a variety of venues in Europe and Asia, including Haus der Kunst, Germany (2024); Grazer Kunstverein, Austria (2023); Hamburger Bahnhof, Germany for the Preis der Nationalgalerie (2024); Tai Kwun Contemporary, Hong Kong (2021); the 13th Shanghai Biennale, China (2021); Martin-Gropius-Bau, Germany (2020); and Tate Modern, U.K. (2019). Her forthcoming exhibition at the Renaissance Society will be only her second solo exhibition in the United States, following Sudden Places at the Walker Art Center. Pan has additionally released several critically acclaimed albums, including Tissues (2022), Jade (2021), and Lack (2017).

About the Exhibition

In fall 2027, Pan Daijing will present a new solo exhibition at the Renaissance Society, incorporating moving image, sound, and other interventions that take their cues directly from the institution’s architectural space. Supported by the 2026 Ellsworth Kelly Award, this new project will be organized by Karsten Lund, Senior Curator.

With its soaring gallery spaces and unusually dynamic acoustics, the Ren offers a unique setting—both challenging and energizing—for an artist who works with sound, space, light, and the ephemeral as emotional forces, as Pan does. The gallery space will become a catalyst for her new work, as she shapes both tangible materials and more intangible atmospheres to reimagine the environment. The institution has a long history of giving artists’ ideas room to grow during a project’s planning and evolution by embracing improvisational methods, periods of irresolution, or new directions along the way.

Following the exhibition, Pan and the Renaissance Society will also produce a publication that both documents her project and expands on it.

Pan Daijing performing in an open floor plan concert hall space with a series of collaborators. Soft yellow lights shine out from the back of the hall, illuminating the space in soft light. The audience is seen sitting and lying down throughout the space, some on the ground floor and others on the balcony.

Dead Time Blue at Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, Germany, 2020, performance view. Photo by Dzhovani Gospodinov.

Installation by Pan Daijing. The labyrinthine space is covered entirely in red carpet-like material, except for a couple openings in the ceiling, through which soft light is visible. To the left is seen a tall recess which separates the different floors of the space. A television plays a video work by the artist, casting soft light onto the red floor and walls surrounding it.

After Fugue at Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin, Germany, 2024, installation view. Photo by Jacopo Laforgia.

A group of performers are seen lying on the floor within an installation by Pan Daijing. The performers are seen wearing sweatpants, sweatshirts, and t-shirts in a variety of muted colors including white, grey, brown, and taupe. They are lying in a pile on top of one another on a floor entirely covered in white sand. To the left of the performers are seen a small pile of white garbage bags. Above the performer hang a mobile-like sculpture created using rusted metal cables.

Done Duet at Power Station of Art, Shanghai, China, 2021, performance view. Commissioned by the 13th Shanghai Biennale / Power Station of Art. Photo by Chen Hao.

Media installation by Pan Daijing. In a dark exhibition space a black and white film is seeing playing on a large screen. In the video two figures, the artists and a collaborator, are seen in the corner of the screen with their bodies appearing to be intertwined with one another’s. Pan’s arm is seen outstretched out to her right. Within the exhibition space, on the left and right walls, are seen a series of tall and narrow speakers.

The Hour Between Dog and Wolf, 2021-2024, as part of Mute at Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany, 2024, installation view. Photo by Manuel Nieberle.

Installation by Pan Daijing. At the entrance to the exhibition space are seen two walls, each with a deep recess housing a black and white drawing. Each drawing is reminiscent of a busy chalkboard, with white writing, streaks, scribbles, and erasings seen atop a black background. Each drawing is also illuminated by a strip light at the top of the recess. Through the entrance between the two walls is visible a series of 3 televisions on the floor, each playing a different video piece by the artist. The first displays a silhouette drenched in a soft blue light. The second displays a close up of a persons face with their hair hanging over their eyes. The third displays a figure with their hands in front of their face drenched in soft green light. The entire exhibition space, with the exception of the artworks themselves, is pitch black.

Sudden Places at Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN, 2025, installation view. Photo by Eric Mueller.