A central concern of Beijing-based artist Hu Xiangqian’s oeuvre seems to be: Is the body a performance artist’s only tool, and are the performative acts of a single body enough to constitute a resonantly critical practice? As if to explore these questions, Hu introduced a second body to Reconstructing Michelangelo, 2014–15, the predominant work in “A Performance a Day Keeps the Doctor Away,” his recent exhibition of four new projects.

Reconstructing Michelangelo considers what the relationship between a master and an apprentice might be in the context of performance art, and attempts to articulate