aaajiao was born in 1984 in Xi’an. Currently lives and works in Shanghai and Berlin.
Active online as a media artist, blogger, activist and programmer, aaajiao is the virtual persona of Shanghai- and Berlin- artist Xu Wenkai. Born in 1984—the title of George Orwell’s classic allegorical novel—and in one of China’s oldest cities, Xi’an, aaajiao’s art and works are marked by a strong dystopian awareness, literati spirits and sophistication. Many of aaajiao’s works speak to new thinkings, controversies and phenomenon around the Internet, with specific projects focusing on the processing of data, the blogsphere and China’s Great Fire Wall. aaajiao’s recent projects extend his practice to various disciplines (among them, architecture, topography, and design) to capture the pulse of the young generation consuming cyber technology and living in social media.
aaajiao’s work has been featured in numerous exhibitions around the world, upcoming and recent shows include "Multiply: Power in Numbers in Contemporary Chinese Art", Modern Art Museum Shanghai, Shanghai, China, 2024; “To Your Eternity”, Today Art Museum, Beijing, China, 2023; “Topologies of The Real Techne (Shenzhen 2023)”, Shenzhen Museum of Contemporary Art and Urban Planning, Shenzhen, China, 2023; “Time Gravity - 2023 Chengdu Biennale”, Chengdu Art Museum, Chengdu, China, 2023; “HOW Art Museum 5th Anniversary Collection Exhibition: “Projection”, Sifang Art Museum, Nanjing, China, 2023; “You as Me, Hold the Gaze”, HOW Art Museum, Shanghai, China, 2023; “The 7th Guangzhou Triennial - symphony of all the changes”, Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou, China, 2023; “Cloud Walkers”, Leeum Museum of Art, Seoul, Korea, 2022; “Forming Communities: Berliner”, KINDL, Berlin, Germany, 2022; “The Archival Impulse: An Exercise in Counter-Narrative and Counter-Memory”, AIKE, Shanghai, China, 2022; “Deep Simulator”, Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Turin, Italy, 2021; “Art in the Age of the Internet, 1989 to Today”, The Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, Boston, USA, 2018; “unREAL”, Haus der elektronischen Künste, Basel, Switzerland, 2017; “Shanghai Project Part II”, Shanghai, China, 2017; “Temporal Turn: Art and Speculation in Contemporary Asia”, Spencer Museum of Art, Kansas, USA, 2016; “Take Me (I’m Yours)” (curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, Jens Hoffmann and Kelly Taxter), Jewish Museum, New York, USA, 2016; “Overpop”, Yuz Museum, Shanghai, China, 2016; “Hack Space” (curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist and Amira Gad), K11 Art Foundation Pop-up Space, Hong Kong and chi K11 art museum, Shanghai, China, 2016; “Globale: Global Control and Censorship”, ZKM | Centre for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, Germany, 2015; and “Thingworld International Triennial of New Media Art”, The National Art Museum of China, Beijing, China, 2014.
His recent solo exhibition includes “A bit A prompt”, SETAREH, Berlin, Germany, 2024; “aaajiao: membrane”, Start Museum, Shanghai, China, 2023; “I was dead on the Internet”, Wannsee Contemporary, Berlin, Germany, 2022; “I was dead on the Internet”, Lianhua Apartment, Shanghai, China, 2021; “Deep Simulator”, Tabula Rasa Gallery, London, UK, 2021; “Deep Simulator”, Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Turin, Italy, 2020; “Cave Simulator”, AIKE, Shanghai, China, 2020; “a’a’a’jiao: an ID”, HOW Art Museum, Shanghai, China, 2019; “bot,” House of Egorn, Berlin, German, 2018; “Gluttony”, A Thousand Plateaus Art Space, Chengdu, China, 2018; “User, Love, High-frequency Trading”, Leo Xu Projects, Shanghai, China, 2017; “Remnants of an Electronic Past”, CFCCA, Manchester, UK, 2016; “Remnants of an Electronic Past”, OCAT, Xi’an, China, 2016.
In 2023, aaajiao’s work was collected by the Pompidou Center in France. aaajiao was awarded the Art Sanya Awards in 2014 Jury Prize and was nominated for the first edition of OCAT-Pierre Huber Art Prize in 2014.