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Tobias Rehberger is an artist whose work is characterized by transformation, serendipity, collaboration and shared experience. His work in large-scale often takes the form of visually-rich environments that are sites for social encounter, such as his Was du liebst bringt dich auch zum weinen (2009), which won the Golden Lion for the 53rd Venice Biennale, his recreation of Frankfurt’s Bar Oppenheimer in New York (2013), or his procession of sculptures 24 Stops between the Beyeler Foundation and Vitra Campus near Basel (2015-2016). When working with self-contained sculpture, Rehberger often looks to the viewer, friends and other collaborators to complete or contribute to the work. He invited fellow artists he had portrayed as vases to present him with a bouquet of flowers, completing each vase portrait, he asked assistants to initiate sculptural formations in velcro for his Infection series (2007 - ongoing) and he worked with craftsmen in Cameroon and Thailand to make serendipitous copies of furniture and cars. Working across diverse scales and an array of media, Rehberger is fascinated by the boundless possibilities of object and environment. As Rehberger once described, “I am very interested in this phenomenon that… the object is not only interested in its own existence. It’s a kind of tool helping the existence of something else” 

Selected solo exhibitions and projects for the artist include If you don’t use your eyes to see, you will use them to cry, Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai (2019); Yourself is sometimes a place to call your own, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Busan (2018); 24 Stops, Fondation Beyeler, Basel (2016); Home and Away and Outside, Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt (2014); Tobias Rehberger: Wrap it up, MACRO Museum, Rome (2014); Dazzle Ship London, River Thames, London (2012); When I See the Other Side of Heaven, It Is Just as Blue (commission), The Leeum Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul (2012); Nest (commission), Bloomberg SPACE, London (2012); Tobias Rehberger, MAXXI, Rome (2010); The Chicken-and-Egg-No-Problem Wall-Painting, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2008); On (2008); On Otto, Fondazione Prada, Milan (2007); Get a New Liver, Tate Liverpool (2006); Private Matters, Whitechapel Gallery, London (2004); Night Shift, Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2002) and The Sun from Above, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2000). Tobias Rehberger lives and works in Frankfurt, Germany.

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Larys Frogier is the Director of the Rockbund Art Museum (RAM) in Shanghai. Curator, critic and art historian, he is involved in artistic and social challenges in post-global contexts where ongoing social, economical, cultural transformations demand new ways of interrelations, citizenship and reinvented creativity. He curated numerous exhibitions and published extensive essays on the works of international artists: Adel Abdessemed, Nan Goldin, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Paola Pivi, Ugo Rondinone, Wang Du, Yang Jiechang. 

Previously the Director of the contemporary art centre La Criée in Rennes (France), he curated long-term projects (symposiums, residencies, exhibitions, publications) which question the links and ruptures between broadening transcontinental areas. Chair of the HUGO BOSS ASIA ART jury since 2013 at the Rockbund Art Museum, he is conceiving this new award, exhibition and research program as an evolving platform to promote emerging artists and to question Asia as a construction to investigate rather than a monolithic area or fixed identities. Larys Frogier taught art theory, history of art and curatorial studies at the University of Rennes, while he was also researcher at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) and at the Archives for Art Criticism. 

Billy Tang is Senior Curator of the Rockbund Art Museum (RAM) in Shanghai. He joined the museum in Spring 2018. His previous projects have helped to introduce moving-image artists to new audiences in Mainland China, commissioning large-scale works of young artists, and curating projects that look to disrupt the architectural function and experience of the exhibition space. Other projects involve curating daily interventions that explore how art appears or is consumed by visitors—most recently at a restaurant in London. He has worked collaboratively with curators and writers to realize exhibitions of works by among others, Wang Bing, Liu Chuang, Lav Diaz, Li Jinghu, Wong Ping, Nabuqi, Yao Qingmei, Song Ta, and Trevor Yeung. 

Diao Wei, founder of Blackbird, Bar No.3, Table Black, Bar Black, Oha Eatery and Oha Café, and designer of Oha Shanghai - Office of Heuristic Architecture. She is in collaboration with Tobias Rehberger to set up and manage the butcher shop and a pub in RAM, as part of Tobias’ exhibition If you don’t use your eyes to see, you will use them to cry. She went to the Art Institute of Chicago to study art, architecture and design, attended the Domus Academy for interior design and environment art, and graduated from University of Wales with a master’s degree in arts. 

托比亚斯·雷贝格，《唯有你所爱的会让你哭泣》，2009年，位于威尼斯双年展内咖啡厅的永久装置作品，图片由艺术家及纽格赫姆施耐德（柏林）惠允