Shu Lea Cheang Gives Trans Artists the Wings to Fly
The filmmaker invites visitors to move and reposition the screens in her four-channel video at Leslie-Lohman, an ever-evolving mosaic of trans performances and dreamscapes.
Upon entering the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art in Soho, viewers are enveloped by projections of an animated Berlin apartment block. As the image loops around the room, a third-floor window swings open and smoke pours into the overcast sky, transforming into a six-winged seraphim that flaps its way into another portal.
Taiwanese-American artist and filmmaker Shu Lea Cheang’s commission LOVER LOVE, on view through January 3, 2027, excavates the experiences and dreams of transgender and gender-nonconforming people through the marriage of physical and virtual landscapes. In the museum’s largest commission to date, a 28-minute film featuring the performances of eight artists plays across four screens suspended on tracks throughout the gallery. The exhibition invites viewers to push and reposition the screens, creating overlapping, complementary, and juxtaposed compositions.
The show serves as a tribute to Cheang’s late friend and longtime collaborator Aérea Negrot, a Berlin-based Venezuelan musician and DJ. Negrot took her own life in 2023, and her tragic passing served as the impetus for LOVER LOVE.
“When I heard that Aérea killed herself, I didn’t believe it,” Cheang told Hyperallergic in a Zoom interview. “I really think she believed she could fly when she stepped out of the window.”
