# What Will You See at Zeng Fanzhi’s First New York Show in Over a Decade? By Marius Pașculea | 2026-11-05 HTML version: https://antre.art/blog/zeng-fanzhi-hauser-wirth-new-york-what-to-see/ > Zeng Fanzhi's first New York exhibition in over a decade opens November 5 at Hauser & Wirth, 542 West 22nd Street: new paintings and a sculpture, through January 16, 2027. Free admission. ## Short answer Zeng Fanzhi opens at Hauser & Wirth New York, 542 West 22nd Street, on November 5, 2026, and runs through January 16, 2027. It is the Beijing-based artist's first New York City exhibition in over a decade, and it presents a suite of new paintings and a new sculpture that conjure imagined celestial landscapes and topographies. ## Key facts - **Who:** Zeng Fanzhi, a celebrated painter based in Beijing, known for years of research into color theory and the paint-layering techniques of the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists. - **What:** A suite of new paintings and a new sculpture, continuing the investigation of color, perception and the material possibilities of paint seen in his 2024 Venice Biennale presentation. - **Where:** Hauser & Wirth New York, 22nd Street, 542 West 22nd Street, New York, NY 10011. - **When:** November 5, 2026 – January 16, 2027. The opening reception is Thursday, November 5, 6 to 8 PM. - **Admission:** Free. No advance booking is necessary. ## What will you see? Landscapes that dissolve the closer you look. Zeng's latest paintings employ the principle of "mélange optique," or optical mixing: hues are layered and placed alongside one another alla prima on the canvas rather than blended on the palette. Seen from a distance, they coalesce into landscapes and geological formations; up close, that legibility dissolves into complex fields of pure pigment. The process is highly kinetic. Working wet-on-wet with multiple brushes at once, Zeng creates twin marks that are directed yet deliberately beyond total control, each new tier of oil paint disrupting the ones still drying beneath it. Across these imagined strata, radiant swaths of turquoise, yellow and deep crimson read like crystalline fossils or bioluminescent matter, while precise grids and lines suggest systems of mapping and excavation that the brushwork keeps interrupting. ## Why does this exhibition matter? This is Zeng Fanzhi's first New York exhibition in more than ten years, and it introduces the latest chapter of a practice most recently seen in "Zeng Fanzhi: Near and Far/Now and Then," the critically admired presentation organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) for the 2024 Venice Biennale. The new works push his dialogue with 19th-century perceptual experiments toward a distinctly contemporary surface: the gallery describes grand oils that evoke both the dense impasto of pointillism and the fractured pixelation of 21st-century digital imagery. ## How do you visit? Hauser & Wirth's 22nd Street gallery is at 542 West 22nd Street in West Chelsea, between 10th and 11th Avenues, a short walk from the High Line exit at 23rd Street. The gallery reopens for the season with this exhibition on November 5, and admission is free with no advance booking. Hauser & Wirth is a [commercial contemporary art gallery](https://antre.art/blog/what-is-a-commercial-contemporary-art-gallery/), so you can simply walk in during opening hours; our guide to [cultural mediation](https://antre.art/blog/what-is-cultural-mediation/) can help you slow down in front of work built to be read at two distances. ## FAQ ### When is the Zeng Fanzhi exhibition at Hauser & Wirth New York? The exhibition runs from November 5, 2026 through January 16, 2027. The opening reception is Thursday, November 5, from 6 to 8 PM. ### Does it cost anything? No. Admission to Hauser & Wirth New York is free, and no advance booking is necessary. ### Is this Zeng Fanzhi's first show in New York? It is his first New York City exhibition in over a decade, following his 2024 Venice Biennale presentation organized by LACMA. ### What is "mélange optique"? Optical mixing: instead of blending hues on the palette, Zeng layers and places them side by side on the canvas, so the colors combine in the viewer's eye. From afar the paintings resolve into landscapes; up close they dissolve into pure pigment. ## About Antre Antre is building an app that gives artworks their context, starting with New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. Join the waiting list at antre.art. ## Sources - Hauser & Wirth, exhibition page for Zeng Fanzhi, New York: dates, works, process and background. - Hauser & Wirth, New York 22nd Street location page: address, admission and visit information. More context: our guides to [Doris Salcedo's new structures at White Cube](https://antre.art/blog/doris-salcedo-white-cube-new-york-what-to-see/) and [Yoshitomo Nara's first show with David Zwirner](https://antre.art/blog/yoshitomo-nara-david-zwirner-new-york-what-to-see/). ## Be first when Antre opens. Join the waiting list for Antre, the adaptive cultural mediation app for Art Explorers, with hyper-personalized cultural context for every artwork, and Antre Art Voice, for galleries, artist-run spaces, artists and curators. One email at launch. Email address Join the waiting list Company I agree to receive an Antre launch email. I can withdraw anytime. [Privacy Policy](/privacy-policy/).