Peter Blum Gallery is pleased to present This is (not) a love song, an exhibition of new and recent works by Berlin and Luxembourg-based artist, Su-Mei Tse. This marks the artist’s sixth solo exhibition with the gallery. The exhibition is on view from November 14, 2025 with an opening reception on November 14 from 6–8pm, and will run through January 24, 2026 at 176 Grand Street, New York, NY.
Su-Mei Tse is a multidisciplinary visual artist whose practice lyrically translates fleeting moments of existence, memory, and feeling into evocative works spanning photography, sculpture, and installation. Initially trained as a classical cellist, Tse's unique background deeply informs her practice, making the perception of visual elements central to a process that is not solely seen, but felt. Her work contemplates life questions by reflecting on notions of time and rhythm, capturing impressions from everyday existence—be it a passing thought, a transitory state, or a sensory experience.
In Tse’s exhibition This is (not) a love song, she continues her meditative exploration of fundamental existence while turning towards themes of origins and cyclic occurrences. She grounds the exhibition in classical thought and East Asian aesthetics alongside the primal elements of soil, wood, water, and air.
In the photograph The End of the World (2025), which captures a picturesque seascape, a viewpoint from the southernmost tip of the Greek Peloponnese hides the mythological Cave of Hades and entrance to the underworld. By depicting the horizon while turning one’s back to the entrance, Tse conceptually shifts the perspective, transforming the legendary end into a poetic opening into the distance—a deep breath into one's own stillness.
The installation Meltemi (2025) conjures the timeless Aegean northwind through a lightly billowing curtain and small sculpture, yet brings an immediate sensation of nowness that permeates the space. These gestures along with the cyclical motif in the text-based work that utilizes a writing attributed to medieval philosopher Ibn Arabi, God sleeps in stone (2024/25), embody the repeated spirit of coming and going, beginning and end, birth and death. They relate a continious spiritual development of conscious awareness.
The exhibition's examination of origins is further represented in the sculptural installation In the (very) beginning (2025). It features a delicate pile of porcelain egg shells on a wooden shelf, with metal prints of a geologic nature as the background, creating a mise en scène of one possible genesis.
The recurring form of the sphere—a motif of cyclic essence—is also central in works created in the spirit of Japanese “dorodango.” These are traditional sculptural handmade balls typically of compacted soil, which in Tse’s works incorporate a wooden root and connect the work to the grounding idea of origins.
In addition to the Classical World, Japan has also been an ongoing source of inspiration and a kind of artistic home or feeling of familiarity for Tse to express her concerns. This is exemplified in the delicate brass work series Sealed (2024) and the photograph Japanese Garden (Kanazawa) (2025).
On the other hand, the distant and unknown is also explored in the Far Side of the Moon (2022). The photo-based collaged work of the moon’s surface is treated like a charcoal drawing while marrying high-resolution detail with a painterly touch and a deep black void.
Tse's original training in classical music remains a vital current in the exhibition. She translates natural phenomena into her personal language using found moments to create visual scores. The photographic works Bird Song (2025) as well as Love Song (2025) are implementations of this practice, whether they are birds on a telephone wire at night, or a heart-like plant where vertical lines and shadows become a twisted musical score. Musical notes seem to emerge and are captured in the everyday.
The exhibition concludes with a utopian wish in the work Daydreams (2024). Using the album cover of Sonic Youth’s Daydream Nation—which features Gerhard Richter's iconic painting Kerze—she doubles the image with an actual lit, endless flame. Tse expresses a desire for a new togetherness and "One Nation of Daydreamers," a call for peace and a universally shared, hopeful humanity.
Su-Mei Tse (b. 1973, Luxembourg) lives and works in Berlin and Luxembourg. She earned her MFA from Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris (2000). Solo institutional exhibitions include: Taipei Fine Arts Museum (2019); Hayward Gallery, London (2018); Yuz Museum, Shanghai (2018); Portland Museum of Art, OR (2018); Aargauer Kunsthaus, Switzerland (2018); MUDAM, Luxembourg (2017); Académie de France à Rome, Villa Médicis, Rome (2014); Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona (2011); Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston (2009); Seattle Art Museum (2008); MIT List Visual Arts Center, Boston (2007); MOCA, Taipei (2007); and MoMA PS1, New York (2006) among others. She participated in Beijing International Art Biennale (2022); Setouchi Triennale, Kagawa, Japan (ongoing); Biennale of Sydney (2018); and São Paulo Biennial (2004) among others. She was awarded the Fondation Prince Pierre de Monaco Prix (2009); Edward Steichen Award (2005); and Venice Biennale Golden Lion for Best National Participation (2003) among others.
For press inquiries, please contact Alejandro Jassan Studio at ale@alejassan.com or +1 (917) 257-1355.
For all other inquiries, please contact Kyle Harris at kyle@peterblumgallery.com or +1 (212) 244-6055.