Beijing Dangdai Art Fair 2026 will take place from May 21 to 24 at Hall 11 of the National Agricultural Exhibition Center, with May 21 to 22 as VIP Preview Days and May 23 to 24 as Public Days. Under the theme “LAND TRACE,” this year’s edition re-examines cultural differences and uneven experiences through the lens of geography and historical geography across multiple contexts, further delineating the detailed landscape of contemporary art amid a moment of value reshaping.

We will be releasing a series of posters centered on works featured at the Fair. These works not only offer possible interpretations of and responses to “LAND TRACE,” but also serve as preview highlights of key artworks and participating institutions. The poster shared in this edition features a signature reclining figure by Swiss sculpture master Hans Josephsohn from Mocube, with a work from the same series held in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

About the Artwork

Hans Josephsohn
Untitled
Reclining figure (Reg. nr. 5013), Brass
2005
69 × 235 × 69 cm
©Courtesy of the artists’ Foundation and Mocube

Swiss sculptor Hans Josephsohn (1920–2012) developed his reclining figure series from the 1960s onward, using the motif of the female body at rest throughout more than six decades of practice. His works evolved from relatively figurative, weighty forms into highly abstract, undulating bodies resembling organic landscapes in his later years. Cast in brass or bronze from plaster originals, their rugged surfaces—marked by fingerprints and traces of modeling—convey both a primal corporeality and a geological sense of permanence. In their stillness, these reclining forms reconcile gravity with grace, oscillating between figuration and abstraction, transforming the human body into a silent monument that embodies the essence of life, emotion, and time. A reclining sculpture created in 2004 was acquired in 2024 by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Whilst his reclining women merge with landscape forms, the impulse for their making was innate – psychological, premised on relationship, mood, emotion. Furthermore, such sculpture sets up a bodily relationship of space, scale, material and place – a conversation that will never cease, but is not a narrative. For there is no story in Josephsohn’s sculptures, only enduring completeness, autonomy.

About the Artist

Portrait of Artist

©Courtesy of the artists’ Foundation and Mocube

Hans Josephsohn (1920, Königsberg – 2012, Zurich) 

Josephsohn is regarded alongside Alberto Giacometti as one of the two most important Swiss sculptors of the 20th century. Like the British sculptor Henry Moore, both received a classical education and training in sculpture. However, Josephsohn’s work possesses a strong modernist sensibility, and today it is increasingly valued and admired by curators, artists, and collectors alike. Josephsohn has also had aprofound influence on younger generations of Swiss artists, such as Fischli/Weiss and Urs Fischer. As a sculptor, Hans Josephsohn focused primarily on the human figure, with his works directly conveying the presence of the human body. Over the course of more than sixty years, Josephsohn continuously developed and refined his artistic style. While his style is entirely modernist, he never denied its connection to the tradition of sculpture. His works embody a remarkable combination of simplicity, rough surfaces, and thoughtfully conceived volumes. 

In his later years, the artist gained widespread international recognition, with solo and major retrospective exhibitions held at institutions including the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, the Museum Folkwang, the Kunstmuseum Bern, the Kunstmuseum Luzern, the Hamburger Bahnhof, the Museum of Modern Art Oxford, the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, the Kolumba Art Museum in Cologne, and the Museum für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt. His sculptures have been featured in the main exhibition of the Venice Biennale, and his works are held in the collections of institutions such as MoMA and Tate Modern.The Felix Lehner Gallery in St. Gallen, Switzerland, serves as the representative for Hans Josephsohn’s estate. His work is also jointly represented by Hauser & Wirth, Thaddaeus Ropac, Galerie Max Hetzler, and Skarstedt.