A BRIEF MOMENT OF TRUTH
In dialogue with Alexandre Zhu
FVTVRIST Magazine // Text by Elina P.
1 May 2026
Anonymity can give a certain sensation of liberation, of protected intimacy. Whether it is the anonymity of a person, a location kept secret, or an element of a construction machine that once carried the conceptual weight of a mythological monster before being stripped of any context that would allow recognition. Alexandre Zhu has been removing context from his work: zooming in, tearing elements out of their surroundings, reducing them to pure material in some series, or capturing just a millisecond of a fleeting memory in others. Being confronted with his work makes this surgical act visible and palpable. Peeling off meanings, connotations, color, gazes: what remains is a pure moment, captured in black dust.
In his most recent work, people emerge, always the closest ones, never recognizable. One finds oneself looking at a figure from the back, savoring those precious seconds of having sole, unshared control over one’s gaze, unchallenged by a responsive one. There is a great tenderness in that, a bittersweet nostalgia in portraying just enough of a figure to capture them without ever revealing them, a quality that now inhabits everything Alexandre makes.
FVTVRIST meets Alexandre Zhu for a dialogue on the role anonymity plays in his work, the in-between spaces he inhabits, his materials, and how the “simple dust” of charcoal finds permanence through technique and gesture.
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A brief moment of truth (2), 2026
Charcoal, pigment, pumice, acrylic polymer on canvas 140x100 cm
© Courtesy of the artist and Gallery Vacancy.
Alexandre Zhu, portrait © Courtesy of the artist.
You grew up between Shanghai and Paris, two cities that could not be more different. How much of that back-and-forth lives in the work today?
A big part of my work is about the transition between two different places, and it partly comes from that life between Paris and Shanghai, where I still have most of my family.
Every time I went back to China, I would not recognize certain places. Change is so rapid there, especially compared to Paris, where everything feels settled, where nothing is ever demolished. In Shanghai, I saw neighborhoods becoming completely different with each visit, and at some point I felt a growing distance from the city, as if I were losing my childhood memories one by one.
It is a strange relationship to have with a family hometown, especially when it is so far away and you only return once a year. It becomes very bittersweet. There is the emotional connection to family, and then there is this more physical relationship to the city itself, watching things that were once part of your memory simply disappear. All the sand drawings I made come from construction sites. That series began from that experience. It is the very foundation of construction, that moment before anything exists. Like stepping away, but from the very beginning.
Two Speed, 2025
Charcoal, pigment, pumice, acrylic polymer on canvas 100x70 cm
© Courtesy of the artist and Altman Siegel, photo by J.A.M.
1/ Threshold, 2024
Charcoal, pigment, pumice, acrylic polymer on canvas
2/ Please turn off all electronic devices (2), 2024
Charcoal, acrylic polymer on canvas, stainless steel and aluminum custom frame
© Courtesy of the artist.
You use cropping and extreme close-ups throughout your work, detaching images from any identifiable context. Could this be seen as a form of generosity toward the viewer, giving them space to project their own reading?
Removing context was present from the very beginning of my studies, although it looked very different at the time: structures placed in large blank spaces, complete emptiness. The opposite of what I do now.
I began zooming in more and more because I became interested in representing materials themselves, and that is how I arrived at these closer views. I would not describe it as generosity exactly; it is more a consequence of what I am trying to do. But there is an intention. These tightly cropped views detach identities and spatial references. They create something timeless, and that is the point. It is simultaneously intimate and anonymous, because there is no clue about who it is, what it is, or where it is.
It does give the viewer a certain freedom, but more as a byproduct. What I am really after is the quality of a fleeting, ephemeral memory, that moment when the mind fixes on a single detail before it dissolves.
View from Paris Internationale 2024
"Threshold" - solo booth, Gallery Vacancy
© Courtesy of the artist and Gallery Vacancy, photo by Choreo.info.
Could it also be a way of protecting something, maintaining a certain distance from what is, after all, very personal material?
It is. It is most visible in the recent works, where I have moved from landscapes and machines toward people. You never see a full face, never a full body. Identifying anyone would be practically impossible. And yet these are the closest people to me, so it is deeply intimate. It operates as a form of double protection: what remains mine stays mine, and what reaches the viewer remains completely anonymous.
It makes me think of Gerhard Richter’s portrait of his wife, painted from the back. There is this endless tenderness and coldness at the same time.
This painting was actually one of my very first references when I started looking at art. Gerhard Richter fascinated me precisely because of those distant portraits. I find that you can feel more of a person depicted from behind than from the front. It is more intimate because it is less protected: when you meet someone’s gaze, there is a point of control, an appearance being managed. From the back, that disappears entirely. And that is exactly the gaze I am trying to hold when I depict people. No one is watching the viewer; you are the only one watching. That moment, especially with someone close to you, becomes more of a mental space than an exchange.
Your earlier series titles reach into mythology, Leviathan, Hadal. What does mythology offer that a more direct or descriptive title would not?
Those titles belong to series that were less personal than my recent work. They did not reveal much on their own, which was the intention. I always make the works first and think about the title afterwards, and mythology felt appropriate because it belongs to everyone. It is a shared foundation. I wanted to connect these very present, very industrial machines to something that does not belong to our time. Leviathan exists across many religions and mythologies, often depicted as destructive, but in some narratives more ambiguous, a force capable of destruction in order to rebuild. That duality is exactly how I approached those machines.
Hadal works differently. It is, above all, a scientific and geographic term referring to the deepest zone of the ocean, largely unknown to humans. I found something compelling in naming a series of seascapes, images that only ever show the surface, after the deepest, most hidden part. I do not see that series as landscapes. It is more of a mental space, a category of feeling. More recently, I tend to use literary references for titles. They move more toward this idea of mental space, of inner dialogue. J. G. Ballard, whose work I greatly admire, has been a major influence.
THE CLOSED AND TIGHT CROPPING IS MEANT TO REMOVE INFORMATION AND CONTEXT, EVOKING MY GAZE OF A FLEETING MOMENT AND TRYING TO LEAVE THE VIEWER IN THEIR OWN PERCEPTION OF A PERSONAL MEMORY, THROUGH MY OWN.
Charcoal seems at first like the most minimal of mediums, yet your process is anything but. You also work with unconventional tools—makeup sponges, bubble wrap—objects far removed from traditional drawing. How did you arrive at charcoal, and how did the process develop?
I became obsessed with charcoal during my studies, and it never left. Looking back, I think it is because of several elements at once. First, its minimalism. It is literally just carbon powder, nothing more. Then there is the simplicity of black and white, which is binary. There is no choice of color, and I find that genuinely liberating. It reduces decision-making to almost nothing, and that focus interests me deeply.
In terms of process, I never began with lines. From the beginning, I would load the surface with charcoal and then remove it, carving into it with different tools. That is where the unconventional materials came from: makeup sponges, bubble wrap, anything that could move the material in the way I needed. It always felt closer to sculpture than drawing. Even now, I sometimes feel the works lack a certain physicality. How to push the medium further, how to make it more present, that is a question I keep returning to.
The research has been long because charcoal is as fragile as it is simple. I started on paper, then moved away from classical framing with glass because I wanted the viewer to feel closer to the surface. I mounted paper on wood, then moved to canvas, which required developing ways for the charcoal to adhere, experimenting with ground layers, fixatives, varnishes, solving technical problems one by one. It is a deceptively complex medium. But that fragility is also why I love it. When I draw, it really is just dust. That is all it is.
People often describe your work as sculptural. Is that a direction you would like to push further?
It is something I am genuinely considering. Even though I feel I am sculpting at times, carving light by removing material, I still sense a lack of physical presence in the work. How to push the medium further, how to make it more materially present, that is the question I am sitting with.
Artist’s studio
© Courtesy of Alexandre Zhu.
Your first institutional solo exhibition is coming at Fondazione Bonollo in 2027 in Italy. How are you approaching it?
It is a foundation created by Sandra and Giancarlo Bonollo to support emerging artists. The exhibition will be curated by Elisa Carollo and will open in April 2027. It will be my first institutional solo exhibition, which is significant for me. The space is a deconsecrated church, which is challenging in the best sense. I have begun thinking about it, but I prefer not to say too much yet. It is still taking shape.
You mentioned wanting to move away from the logic of the series. Where are you now with that?
It has come full circle, which I find almost amusing. A few years ago, I stopped working in series because I needed more freedom, and that is precisely when the work became more personal. It allowed me to explore multiple directions and experiment without constraints. But after some time, I found that I wanted structure again. The openness became too diffuse, the directions too blurred because everything was possible.So now I feel the need to return to something more defined. It is a cycle, like most things.
Studio visit, 2026
© Courtesy of the artist and FVTVRIST.
Artist’s studio
© Courtesy of Alexandre Zhu.
About Alexandre Zhu
Alexandre Zhu (b. 1993) is a French-Chinese artist who grew up between Shanghai and Paris. He studied at the École nationale supérieure des Arts Décoratifs (Paris) and the School of Visual Arts (NY). Working primarily with charcoal drawing, Alexandre Zhu develops intricate compositions through a meticulous and time-intensive process that merges observation and introspection. His practice explores themes of memory, displacement and cultural belonging, informed by his experience within the Chinese diaspora and the shifting environments of his upbringing. Depicting both natural and constructed landscapes as well as intimate details of close individuals, his works employ a subtle visual language that situates images in a liminal space—between intimacy and distance, presence and erosion—while opening onto both personal and collective narratives.
Laureate of the Pierre David-Weill’s Académie des Beaux-Arts Drawing Prize (2021) and Prix Dauphine Contemporary (2022), he was selected for the Artpress Biennale (2022). In 2024, he was nominated as a finalist for the K11 Art Foundation Prize. His work has been shown in various galleries, fairs and institutions, such as Victoria Miro (Venice IT), Altman Siegel (San Francisco, US), Gallery Vacancy (Art Basel, Frieze, Paris Internationale), Zhi Museum (Chengdu, CN), MO.CO (Montpellier, FR).
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