Opening Reception: Saturday, January 10, 2026, 2pm — 4pm 

(the gallery will be open 10am — 4pm)

Artist Talk: 4pm

About the exhibition

Leah Ke Yi Zheng’s upcoming exhibition presents a complete series of 64 paintings based on the hexagrams of the  I Ching (Book of Changes), a foundational text in Chinese philosophy that offers insights into the changing nature of existence. Each painting reflects on a hexagram not through literal representation, but through an evolving visual language shaped by abstraction, intuition, and the interplay of light and material. As she works with silk and hand-built hardwood stretchers, in continual difference, the exhibition becomes a meditation on change itself: how it is read, made visible, and experienced through painting.

Zheng’s practice brings together traditional Chinese materialities and conceptual art methodologies to explore transformation, multiplicity, and the logic of variation. It is rooted in a dialogue between Eastern and Western modes of thought and influenced by thinkers such as John Cage and Yuk Hui. In this project, the  I Ching  is not only a reference, it is a method, a structure, and a philosophical companion. This is a one-work exhibition: Zheng considers the full sequence as a total and single work in itself, with every painting still an individualized piece. 

For Change, I Ching (64 Paintings), Zheng has also subtly reshaped the exhibition architecture. The transformation is understated rather than dramatic, but carefully calibrated to heighten the play of light throughout the space, and, at times, to redirect it in dialogue with the paintings. By covering certain windows, adjusting the proportions of select walls, and building a new rhythm around the room’s perimeter, Zheng creates conditions that privilege what she calls “the light of the here and now.” As daylight shifts over the course of the day, the silk paintings shift with it, their surfaces absorbing and reflecting minute changes in color and brightness. In turn, these variations reveal the altered space itself, making the architecture and the paintings co-responsive, changing together in real time. 

Curated by Myriam Ben Salah and Karsten Lund.

About the Artist

LEAH KE YI ZHENG (b.1988, China) lives and works in Chicago. Recent solo and two-person exhibitions include Machine(s) at Layr, Vienna (2025); I-Ching/Machineat Mendes Wood DM, New York (2025); Leah Ke Yi Zheng at Mendes Wood DM, Brussels (2024); John Cage, Leah Ke Yi Zheng: The Grasshopper Lies Heavy at Castle Gallery, Los Angeles (2024); Leah Ke Yi Zheng at David Lewis Gallery, New York (2023); and Currency @ Swiss National Bank, Zurich at Soccer Club Club, Chicago (2021). Recent group exhibitions include New Museum, New York (2025); Zeno X Gallery, Antwerp (2023); and Caffé Centrale, Monte Castello di Vibio (2022) among others. She was awarded a 2019 – 2021 Fellowship from The Arts Club of Chicago.

Credits

Lead support for this exhibition is provided by Murat Ahmed & Katherine Mackenzie and School Museum Fund, The Hees Family. Principal support is provided by Gay-Young Cho and Christopher Chiu.

Major annual support for the Renaissance Society is provided by the Mellon Foundation. Renaissance Society programs are supported by Teiger Foundation, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and a grant from the Illinois Arts Council. Annual support is provided by The Provost’s Discretionary Fund at the University of Chicago.

All Renaissance Society publications are made possible by The Mansueto Foundation Publications Program.

Events

Opening Reception 

Sat, Jan 10, 2-4pm  

With artist talk at 4pm

Performance

Eli Keszler

Sun, Feb 15, 2pm

Eli Keszler is a Grammy-nominated artist, composer, and percussionist based in New York. Whether performing an improvised solo set at the drum kit or writing an electro-acoustic score for a film, he brings an agile experimentation to his work. For this site-specific appearance, Keslzer performs live in the gallery space in the afternoon light. Within this unique architectural and acoustic setting, he offers his own take on some of the dynamics at play in Leah Ke Yi Zheng’s exhibition, including change and variation, iterative multiplicity, and logics of impermanence.

Discussion

Special Guests of the Artist

With Danny Bredar, Gaylen Gerber, and Oscar Zheng

Sun, Mar 22, 2pm

For this informal discussion in the gallery space, Leah Ke Yi Zheng is joined by three people from her close circle: artists Danny Bredar and Gaylen Gerber, and her son Oscar Zheng. Each of them brings an intimate familiarity with her practice and a deeply personal perspective on her work. In an impromptu, unscripted exchange, they surface aspects of Zheng’s exhibition that might not emerge in a formal artist talk. Their conversation mirrors the spirit of the I Ching itself, which, according to Zheng, absorbs all aspects of life.

Visit renaissancesociety.org for more information.