Option 17e.V was established in Frankfurt, Germany in 2019 as a registered art and curatorial association. lts aim is to bring to gather individuals from diverse creative and cultural backgrounds to promote art and culture. We strive to integrate new exhibition formats. Ranging from architecture, art, and design to culinary arts, through various media and fields. We regularly organize art exhibitions and public cultural events in both Frankfurt and Chengdu.

Yu Song, novelist, playwright, poet, lives in Chengdu, flexibly employed, has published full-length novels “Hometown”, “Customized Times”, “The Rice Shrine”, and “Botanical Man”, and has performed plays such as “The Righteous Chaperone” and “The Ordeal”.

Ren Han, born in Tianjin in 1984, currently lives and works in Paris. In 2006, he obtained a bachelor’s degree from the Department of Oil Painting at the Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts. In 2011, he earned a master’s degree from the École Nationale Supérieure d’Arts à la Villa Arson in France. He has participated in art residencies in Paris, Lyon, and Matsudo.

The year Han was born coincides with the title of George Orwell’s dystopian novel, “1984”. His upbringing coincided with the rapid urbanization of China and the global proliferation of the internet. He integrates mythology, nature, and digital images into his works, using drawing, installations, and site-specific works to conduct a series of studies and reflections based on visual culture consumption in the pan-internet era. He once said, “I question the meaning of humans continuously constructing and destroying driven by desire,” and his work is a Sisyphean response to this world.

His works have been exhibited at the Monnaie de Paris, Centquatre Art Center, Cité Internationale des Arts; the New Franco-Chinese University Museum in Lyon; the Asian Arts Museum in Nice; the Jimei x Arles International Photo Festival in Xiamen; Today Art Museum, Times Art Museum, and Taikang Space in Beijing; Nanjing University of the Arts Museum; OCAT Xi’an; Moscow Museum of Modern Art, among others. He has also held solo exhibitions in Paris, Lyon, Berlin, and Beijing. In 2024, he was invited by UCCA Lab to create a large-scale site-specific installation for Arc’teryx.

Jun Homma, born in 1967, graduated from Tama Art University with a degree in design. Since “Rope” (1997), in which a rotating jump rope continuously creates voids, he has exhibited works transversely in media such as sculpture, installation, and video on the theme of “invisibility. Since 2000, he has been developing site-specific works in forests, oceans, rivers, and bridges, focusing on domestic and international art projects. In recent years, he has been working on a series of works that bring into existence on a single time axis the generation (past) and disappearance (future) of
anonymous sculptures and ready-made objects.

Li Sizhu is a Chinese-born kinetic installation artist based in New York. She holds a BFA from Central Academy of Fine Arts and an MFA from Mary land Institute College of Art with the Toby Devan Lewis Fellowship. Sizhu’s works have been widely exhibited in Europe and America. Since 2020, her pandemic-inspired touring project Moonment has been well shown internationally, including at the Viborg Kunsthal in Denmark, The Dark Room Vertical Art Festival in Berlin, the Lille Art Fair in France, as well as at the Washington College, Alabama Contemporary Art Center, Missouri State University, and the Maryland Howard Arts Center in the United States.Additionally, Li Sizhu has received numerous art grants from different institutions, including the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, the New York City Corps, Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance, etc. Since 2021, Li has been teaching at the Pratt Institute.

Li Chuang is a young pianist who has previously worked in the United States, currently serves as a piano faculty member at Chengdu Vocational University of the Arts, and is an artist-in-residence at A4 Residency Art Center. His performance venues span notable locations such as the Chicago Cultural Center, Merkin Hall in New York, Tanglewood Music Festival in the United States, the Royal Jazz Myra Hess Memorial Concert in the UK, Chengdu City Concert Hall, YunDuan Tianfu Concert Hall, Shenzhen Bay Arts Center, and Guangzhou Opera House, among others. Conductors Li Chuang has collaborated with include Dr. Cliff Colnot, Music Director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s Music Now series, and Scott Seaton, Principal Conductor of the North State Symphony in California.

Li Chuang’s performances have been broadcast globally by 98.7 WFMT, the classical music radio station in Chicago. Media coverage includes the International Music Association and the Chicago Forum newspaper. Li Chuang is a graduate of the School of Music at California State Polytechnic University and the School of Music at DePaul University in Chicago, where he studied under the tutelage of renowned pianists Professor Wu Chi, Dr. Daniela Mineva, and Professor George Vatchnadze.

Ge Yulu graduated from Hubei Institute of Fine Arts with a bachelor’s degree in 2013 and obtained a master’s degree from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2018. He do not limit myself to a single medium and enjoy testing so-called artworks in everyday contexts to generate interesting dialogues. Interviews and written pieces are published on various social media platforms, although he have not participated in many exhibitions yet, only briefly taking part in several group exhibitions in major developed countries.

His aspiration is to use art to restore humanity and eliminate the inequality in dialogue caused by differences in status and resources. My creations often focus on public dilemmas, contradictions, cognitive dissonance, and logical paradoxes.

Chen Fenwan often combines Chinese folk paper-cutting with contemporary art in her works, she was praised as Top paper-cutting artist of the post-90s generation in China by the media.Her works use the materiality of paper as creation language, breaking the established boundaries of material carriers and spatial volumes, and giving an imagination of narrative to the creation and the space. In her opinion, paper-cutting is not only a technique, but also a way of thinking based on the present. Meanwhile, she is good at combining her personal experience with the public memories and seeking collective emotional resonance in creation.

Chen Fenwan was selected for the Chinese Modern Art Archive (CMAA) and The Exhibition of Annual of Contemporary Art of China in 2019. In 2021, Chen Fenwan created The West Lake in Vectorial Dynamic as a public art work through public solicitation in Zhejiang Art Museum; in 2022, two site-specific art works, Hello, Walls
and Papercut on the Earth’s Window, were both exhibited in Art Field Nanhai Guangdong; in 2023, she held a comprehensive large-scale solo-exhibition THE PAPER CUTTER – Chen Fenwan at Shenzhen Jupiter Art Museum. Lucky Garden as one of her representatives, participating Chengdu Biennale Exhibition in 2021, as well as the ten-year exhibition of Zhejiang Art Museum in 2019; Infinite has been touring exhibited for 13 times from 2018 to 2024. Since 2014, she has taken “symmetry” as the core concern of her personal research topic and creation, during the continuous creation of large-scale works such as A Symmetrical Nature series and Symmetrical series: kite which was exhibited in World Expo Museum in 2024, she is continuously giving new interpretation to this research object by the form of contemporary paper-cutting.

At the same time, Chen Fenwan tries to dialoque with more dimensional fields and audiences by her works, exploring the value tension and cooperation between business and art. She has collaborated with or carried out large-scale public art cooperation projects with internationally renowned brands such as Coca-Cola, L’ORÉAL, Cartier, FENDI, GUCCI, HUBLOT, Mercedes-Benz, UNIQLO, SHISEIDO, SHANGXIA, Rémy Martin, etc., and has been recognized and noticed.

Abel & Carlo Korinsky holds a Master of Arts in Sound Studies, which he obtained at University of Art in Berlin, where he studied with Sam Auinger and Robert Henke. He also graduated with a degree in Social Sciences and History at the University of Wuppertal. Beside this, he passed the state exam in music and German language. He is co-founder and artistic & technical director of Studio Korinsky in Berlin. He has rich experiences with presenting pieces of art all over the world. He worked with notable institutions as Goethe Institut or Berlin Senate. He has deep knowledge in the field of digital media, choreographic conception. He has profound understanding of audio equipment and other equipment used at art exhibitions. He also worked as lecturer at the HTWG, Kontanz, Coburg University, Humboldt Institut Berlin and others institutions.

Studio Korinsky transforms forgotten spaces into immersive environments, predominantly by utilizing sound as a primary medium and coding their own softwares for sound spatialization. Their aim is to create a distorted reality by disrupting preconceived notions and presenting the audience altered sensory experiences. The majority of their projects are developed and shaped by the integration of Al, motorization, robotics, and coding, emphasizing a synthesis of artistic expression and technological innovation.

Greta Magyar , born 1991 in Gehrden, lives and works in Kiel-Germany. Now she’s a visual artist focusing on printmaking, painting, collage.Magyar’s experiences from her extensive work with biological systems in the context of collaborative projects with science gives her deep understanding of biological phenomenon.

In Greta Magyar’s work, the use of printing crafts and techniques plays a specific role: the artworks combine unusual techniques of copper intaglio printing, using everyday industrial materials such as packaging with techniques of drawing and ink painting as well as collage. However, bricolage is not her purpose. Her interest is rather in the incorporation of time into the process. She reckons with the individual steps that this process needs: elaborate technical preparations or, like collage in some cases, a laborious finishing. If one compares the large format panel painting cultivated by Magyar with the medium of printing, it is apparent how she lets herself be guided by the inherent will of the respective medium and the requirements and history of the material. She seeks the challenge of the limits of the respective medium and yet yields nothing in terms of precision where the process demands it.

Since 2015 Guda Koster and Frans van Tartwik collaborate in their performances. Kosters sculptures are closely related to clothing and costumes, and after having decided to wear her sculptures herself as a model for her photographic works, it was a logical next step to let her sculptures come to life and do performances as well. Frans van Tartwiik is a visual artist who has a wide experience as a performer and musician. The sculptures used in the performances are produced together, and together they decide on movement, sound/music and location.

Kosters and van Tartwilks sculptures and performances bring to mind Kasimir Malevich revolutionary stage design for the Opera Victory over the sun (1913) or Oscar Schlemmers Triadic ballet(1922) in which the costumes used are more like sculptures. The aesthetic quality of
Koster/van Tartwilk’s costumes/sculptures is important: they are made meticulously and the fabrics used contribute to their fresh and colorful appearance. Each costume has a distinct character, and humour and exaggeration are never far away. Apart from what the “Living Sculptures” look like, there are also (mostly subtle) references to themes like (over)consumption, identity, (in)equality, architecture, and art.

In the 60’s and 70’s performance artists like Vito Acconci, Marina Abramovic and Yoko Ono confronted their audiences in the most radical ways possible. The artists’ body was literally used as a material. Closely linked with this radical use of the body was the aspect of physical endurance. In Koster and van Tartwilk’s recent performances like The hand that gives (2021), Coole types(2022), or A man with many faces(2020) the interaction with the public is an important aspect. but the performers do not seek a confrontation. The body is not used as a material, but it remains invisible and hidden in the sculpture. Endurance can be important.

Since 2017 many of Koster and van Tartwijks performances took place on carefully selected locations on streets, squares or parks in Dutch, German or French cities. The sculptures/performers move and act: they chant, dance and speak. The amazed passers-by may wonder what the true nature of these appearances is: are they machines, performers, male or female?

Liucija Kvasytè, fashion designer and researcher, who has been creating and introducing herself since 2012, and in September 2023 she defended her doctoral thesis in design on the topic “The Significance of Attitude in Fashion Design: from Material to Moral Sustainability”.

Four years of working on the topic of sustainability pushed her to look at this problem comprehensively and seek contact not only with other creators, but also with fashion consumers. Many of her works are related to criticism of consumption and sustainability practices, looking at them as away to talk, communicate, and look for new ways of the future.

Marc Lee born in 1969, is a Swiss artist. He focuses on real-time processed, computer programmed audiovisual installations, AR, VR and mobile apps. He critically reflects creative, cultural, social, ecological, political and speculative aspects. His work has been shown in major museums and new media art exhibitions including: ZKM Karlsruhe, New Museum New York, MMCA Seoul, ISEA Gwangju and Paris, Transmediale Berlin, Ars Electronica Linz and has received major awards.

Including: the Expanded Media Award for Network Culture Stuttgart (2024), the Pax Art Award Basel (2021), the Netart Award Hamburg (2008) and the Transmediale Award (2002).

He is lecturing, teaching and holding workshops about art and software art in many schools including the CAA Hangzhou, Strelka Moscow, SIVA Shanghai, MMCA Seoul and ZHdk Zurich.

Niamh Cunningham is a Beijing based visual artist and has exhibited in over 70 exhibitions in China over the past decade. Cunningham has been actively engaged in cross cultural projects in China co curating IRISH WAVE exhibitions in Beijing and Shanghai for the Irish Festival in China (2012-2016) She was Beijing co-curator for the ‘Intimate Transgressions’ exhibition in October 2015 at Inter Art Gallery 798. In October 2017 she was commissioned to make two large sculptures as part of a land art residency in Wudi Shangdong. In November 2020 she began working with the Institute of Process Engineering (IPE) developing ‘Microbe Art’ and together with IPE presented pilot workshops to Middle School 101. She considers her work on the “Memory Palace of Tree Stories” to be her most important todate. At the beginning of 2020 the artist began the sociological ecological art practice “The Memorv Palace of Tree Stories”. This is a gathering of stories from different people around the globe. Most recently the stories are in short video format. Cunningham was awarded public funding by her hometown in Ireland Carlow County Council and Creative Ireland Carlow Program for a specially designated website and collaboration with Carlow Garden Festival where she worked closely with the local tourist office gathering Tree Stories on video by visitors to the festival.

Noemi Niederhauser is based in Lausanne, Switzerland. She is a ceramist, designer, mycologist, visual artist, curator, and the co-founder of the artist-run space A-DASH in Athens, GR. She holdsan MFA in Fine Arts from Central Saint Martins, London, UK (2014) and previously studied ceramic design at the Applied Art School of Vevey, CH (2010). She is currently a ceramic design teacher at CEPV, Vevey (CH).

Her work has been exhibited internationally in galleries, museums and institutions such as: ADI Design Museum, Milan (IT); Milan Design Week; Dutch Design Week, Eindhoven (NL); Swiss Design Awards 2019, Basel (CH); Raw Material Company, Dakar (SN); Documenta 14. Athens (GR): The Centre for Sustainable Fashion and Arts Council (UK): the MUDAC, Lausanne (CH): the Victoria & Albert Museum, London (UK); the MCBA, Lausanne (CH). She is a 2016- 2017-2019 recipient of Pro Helvetia Research Grants and Awards.

Noemi Niederhauser is fascinated with materials and their endless processes of transformation. Dancing across the blurred boundaries between art, craft and design, the visual propositions she develops engage with the symbolic embedded into materials and artifacts in relation to time and historv. Both in her artistic practice and in that of a curator, she develops proposals in collaborative forms and with an approach centered on experimental research towards materials. She is part of various collaborative project in Europe, Asia and Africa while carefully analyzing the social, economic and ecological impact that her approach generates over the long term.

Oliver Herring is a visual artist known internationally for his use of experimental techniques as a means to better understand human nature, individual behavior, and interpersonal dynamics. His work has taken on a variety of forms, but since 2000 has focused primarily on brief yet intensive collaborative encounters with volunteer participants. Herring directs and documents these open-ended performances, usually involving a series of improvised actions, which take place in different environments – public and private, cultural and educational – and feature groups of people interacting with each another. The resulting works not only record these impromptu activities, but also reveal the poignancy implicit in humanity when strangers expose their vulnerabilities and embrace trust.

His first solo exhibition in 1993 at the New Museum in New York featured hand-knit Mylar and tape sculptures inspired by the death of playwright and drag performer Ethyl Eichelberger, work which he continued for a decade. Herring’s creative practice later evolved to include videos, performances, drawings, three-dimensional photographic sculptures, and TASK, a simple performance structure that manifests itself as an ongoing series of parties and workshops.

Over the last nineteen years TASK has become established as an educational tool in schools at all grade levels, as an access point to contemporary art, and a social icebreaker. Performed in
hundreds of classrooms all over the world, TASK has also taken place in partnership with large cultural and educational institutions and organizations including the National Art Educators Association; Turnaround Arts, (an initiative of the President’s Committee for the Arts and the Humanities); the school district of Melbourne, Australia; and Art21. A book on TASK was published in 2009 by Illinois State University.

Herring’s work is in the collections of many major institutions, and has been exhibited widely nationally and internationally, including the Museum of Modern Art, NY; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum of Art, NY; the Whitney Museum of Art, NY; Performa 09, NY; the Hirschhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; the Baltimore Museum of Art, MD; The Frye Art Museum, Seattle, WA; the Blanton Art Museum, Austin, TX; and the Denver Art Museum, CO. Elsewhere, he has exhibited at the Camden Art Center, London; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Kyoto Art Center, Kyoto; He Xiangning Art Museum, Shenzhen; A4 Art Museum, Chengdu; McAM, Shanghai; OCAT-Xian, Xian; Xth Lyon Biennale, Lyon; Performa 09, NY; Configura II, Erfurt; 2010 Aichi Triennale, Nagoya.

Me Us Them, a fifteen year survey of Herring’s work, was organized in 2009 at the Tang Museum, Saratoga Springs, NY. Herring was featured on Season 3 of PBS’s program Art21, Art in the 21st Century.