Bruno Zhu meticulously restyles everyday commodities and exhibition spaces, articulating parallels between institutional policies, Western European art history, and the aesthetics of fashion and commerce.
For his first large-scale solo presentation in Denmark, Zhu has created a dual exhibition that spans the country’s rural west—with the show Men at Work at Huset for Kunst og Design (HFKD) in Holstebro—to its metropolitan east—with the exhibition Women Upstairs at O—Overgaden in Copenhagen.
Between the two venues, the artist draws a hypothetical line across the country: a parade, or catwalk, of sorts. While Men at Work at HFKD features undressed male models mounted on flat stands, Women Upstairs at O—Overgaden presents nude, female mannequins posing inside structures that resemble life-size green emergency exit signs.
Within the four monumental cabinets at O—Overgaden, four female mannequins—a baby, a toddler, a teenager, and an adult—take the place of the exit sign’s classic pictogram figure. One hand of each mannequin has been modified to mimic a gun. These garish sculptural compositions thus operate like three-dimensional dioramas, directing us to both follow each protagonist and to ask how one might exit, or escape, the institutional mold—an infrastructure explicitly not molded for women.
Bruno Zhu (b. 1991, PT) is a visual artist working between Portugal and the Netherlands. Zhu graduated from Central Saint Martins, London (2014), and Sandberg Instituut, Amsterdam (2016) and has previously exhibited at venues such as M HKA, Antwerp (2025); Chisenhale Gallery, London (2024); Veronica, Seattle (2024); What Pipeline, Detroit (2023); and Cordova, Barcelona (2022). Since 2016, Zhu has run the exhibition space A Maior in Viseu, Portugal. Zhu’s upcoming exhibition at O—Overgaden and HFKD will mark his first solo commission in Denmark.
