Pace Gallery now represents emerging artist Li Hei Di, who at 27 is now the youngest artist that the gallery represents. Li will have their first solo show with Pace in Hong Kong next year and the gallery will offer a new painting by the artist in its booth at Art Basel Miami Beach in December.
Pace will represent the London-based artist alongside their current dealers, Michael Kohn Gallery in Los Angeles and Pippy Houldsworth Gallery in London, each of which have given the artist a solo show in the past 12 months. Li’s first solo gallery show came in 2022 via Linseed Projects in Shanghai.
Though early in their career, Li, who was born in 1997 in Shenyang, China, has made a name for themself with their layered, ethereal abstractions to which they “ latent narratives about gender, desire, and emotional fluidity for viewers to uncover and decipher,” according to a release.
They have found fans in top collectors and major museums alike, with their works being in the collections of the Turin-based Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, California-based Komal Shah, and Dallas-based Howard Rachofsky, as well as the Columbus Museum of Art in Ohio, the Institute of Contemporary Art Miami, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which recently acquired their 2023 canvas Unquenchable Laughter, Inescapable Desert.
Li Hei Di, Unquenchable Laughter, Inescapable Desert, 2023.
©Li Hei Di/Courtesy Michael Kohn Gallery
At Pace, Li will work closely with Joshua Friedman, an LA-based senior director who joined the gallery this month after nearly a decade as a partner at Michael Kohn Gallery, as well as Evelyn Lin, Pace’s newly appointed president for Greater China, who will focus on growing the artist’s profile in Asia.
“I’ve had the pleasure of working with Li Hei Di for many years, and I’ve watched their practice expand into new spaces and directions,” Friedman said in a statement. “Their ability to synthesize so many ideas and feelings on the canvas—issues of sexuality and identity, references to literature and film, and reflections of their own subconscious, inner world—is remarkable, and I can’t wait to see where their art goes with Pace’s institutional support.”
The mega-galleries have been on a bit of kick as of late when it comes to scooping up young talent. Earlier this month, David Zwirner announced it would represent 26-year-old Sasha Gordon (in collaboration with Matthew Brown); in Feburary, the gallery took on 33-year-old artist Emma McIntyre (in collaboration with Chateau Shatto and Air de Paris). In May, 29-year-old British artist George Rouy joined the roster of Hauser & Wirth (in collaboration with Hannah Barry Gallery in London). Li takes the youngest spot on Pace’s roster from Pam Evelyn, who was born in 1996 and began working with the gallery during summer 2023.
In a statement, Lin said, “I’m so pleased to be working with Li Hei Di on their debut solo exhibition with the gallery, which is also their first-ever solo show in Hong Kong. This is exactly the kind of presentation—spotlighting a bright new figure at the start of their career—that I want to organize at Pace in Hong Kong. Li’s work and their unique perspective will resonate deeply with our audiences in Asia, and I’m looking forward to seeing this landmark moment in their career next year.”
