Yang Mai: HOLD ME IN YOUR ARMS
@ Zhou B Art Center
1029 W 35th Street Chicago, IL 60609
Opening Friday, July 17th, from 7PM - 10PM
On view through Sunday, August 16th
OH Art Foundation is pleased to announce Hold Me in Your Arms, a solo exhibition featuring the work of Yang Mai. On view from July 17th to August 16th, 2026, we invite all to join us for the exhibition opening on Friday, July 17th, from 7-10pm on the 3rd floor of the Zhou B Art Center.
Hold Me in Your Arms exists as both an exhibition and as a standalone structure: an intricate, site-specific, self-perpetuating system that, despite its industrial references, is imbued with organic movement that is unmistakably bodily in nature. Repurposed garments, colorful paint, and PVC pipes are deconstructed and distorted to create striking new forms that clamber across the gallery floor, commanding attention beyond the ordinary. Mai’s compositions reveal the inner intricacies of unseen systems that govern our lives; by disrupting space and form, he disseminates the sociopolitical nuances of belonging—how, for example, might matters of individuality be shaped by restrictive conditions? Inversely, are systems also molded by those they aim to regulate, classify, and standardize? This mutual malleability is explored in the push-pull architecture of Hold Me in Your Arms, which, though unquestionably inoculated with the artist’s mastery of balance, deftly embodies the pervasive tension that defines the world around us.
Yang Mai (麦扬, b. 1991, Guangzhou, China) is an artist based between Chicago and New York. He holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BFA from the Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology. He is a recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts. His work has been presented in solo exhibitions across New York, Chicago, Beijing, and Nairobi, and shown at institutions and galleries including CUE Art Foundation, ChaShaMa, Three Shadows Art Centre, Zhou B Art Center, and Art Miami, among others. His work has been featured in publications including The New York Times, El País, Artnet, Artron, Contemporary Art Daily, Vogue, among others.
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Tags: Chicago, OH Art Foundation, Yang Mai, zhou b art center
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