Visitors explore the exhibition Photo: Courtesy of Red Brick Art Museum

The exhibition Heidi Bucher: Beyond the Skins is ongoing at Beijing's Red Brick Art Museum. Curated by Yan Shijie and assisted by Yan Zi, the exhibition presents more than 100 major works from the career of Heidi Bucher (1926-93), one of the most important avant-garde artists of the 20th century and one of the most neglected in mainstream historical art narratives. 

The exhibition includes rediscovered and restored video ­materials, early paper-based paintings, abstract silk collages, ­wearable sculptures from the Los Angeles period, and the Skinning series of human bodies and architecture at the height of her creation. These transformative works reflect Bucher's exploration of the relationship between the human psyche and space, with gender, ­society, and politics as key issues in her work.

Curator Yan refers to Bucher's ongoing production as an incarnation of the artist's creation. In the last 10 years of her life, Bucher found the Lanzarote in the Atlantic Ocean, a poetic and desolate volcanic island that she called "a source of intoxication and faith in the primitive and natural."