Post/No/Bills #7: Anatomy of Obstruction by Kexin Hao at the Stedelijk Museum

In the seventh edition of the Post/No/Bills series, artist Kexin Hao transforms the Stedelijk Museum's historic staircase corridor into a metaphorical body. Through a series of large-scale anatomical murals, the exhibition explores the intersections between organizational systems and biological organisms, questioning how structures of power define health, illness, and resistance.

In 'Anatomy of Obstruction,' the seventh edition of the Stedelijk’s Post/No/Bills series, Kexin Hao investigates the parallels between institutions and organisms. By transforming the museum’s corridor into an anatomical landscape, Hao invites visitors to navigate a space where systemic power is mirrored in the functions of a body. The work features distinct sections—such as 'Rebuttal from Within' and 'Air Affairs'—which borrow from diverse visual histories, including eighteenth-century natural theology encyclopedias, Daoist body maps, and official government backdrops. By scaling these anatomical diagrams to fill the architectural niches of the staircase, Hao challenges the way systems categorize and simplify the world. The installation acts as a reflection on how organizations and states use visual language to project stability, while simultaneously surfacing the resistance that emerges from within these frameworks. Ultimately, the exhibition invites viewers to consider the boundaries of the self and the other, exploring how labels of health and illness are constructed to contain and regulate both individual bodies and collective political entities.

Visitors can access the museum through a standard ticket. Information regarding admission and booking is available via the museum's official website ticket portal linked on the exhibition page.