XI NIU
for rhinoceros
gallery
Goal
Xi Niu (犀牛, rhinoceros in Chinese) is a special project at rhinoceros, the gallery on Via del Velabro in Rome founded by Alda Fendi in a building designed by Jean Nouvel. Curated by Claire Shiying Li, with art direction by Ignazio Morello, it gathers seven contemporary practices from China and treats the Silk Road not as a trade map but as a route still in use.
The identity had to hold two things at once: a Roman institution speaking Chinese, and a Chinese visual vernacular arriving in Rome. It runs across the exhibition graphics, a full merchandise line and the project website.
The mark
In July 1515, this rhinoceros woodcut was created in Rome by an anonymous artist to illustrate a poem by Giovanni Giacomo Penni. This was the first printed image of a rhinoceros in Europe. What better way to represent the relationship between Rome and Asia?
In fact, China has a long history with rhinos too, as they used to roam the entire country in ancient times. Four of the seven artists in the show come from or work in Chengdu, where a massive 2,300-year-old rhino sculpture was lifted out of Tianfu Square in 2013.
The website
For the exhibition’s visual communication, we decided to juxtapose the artworks with everyday objects that are part of daily life in China. As some of the artists were in residence in Rome, this approach aimed to bring a sense of China into the city while avoiding familiar cultural stereotypes. The same concept extends to the website, where a three-column scrolling layout places the artists’ works alongside recurring objects from everyday Chinese life: a mailbox, a jar of chilli oil, and a blue plastic stool.
Merchandise
As a lover of Chinese cuisine, I often get Yeshu coconut milk while eating spicy Sechuan foods. This personal habit inspired me to propose a custom-designed can of sparkling water for the exhibition, imagined as a cultural object in its own right and created specifically for the occasion.
Alongside this, we also developed a range of more traditional merchandise, adapting Xi Niu’s visual identity to ringer T-shirts, high-quality organic cotton tote bags, and blue embroidered caps.
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