Artistic representations of landscape are studied in various disciplines (art history, geography, literature, philosophy, politics, sociology), and there is no master narrative or historiographic genealogy to frame interpretations. This proves that landscape, no matter if interpreted from the purely naturalistic point of view or with regards to its conceptual implications is a master topic touching upon the cultural, social, geo-political fields. Landscape is far from being a neutral backdrop; on the contrary it reveals many more aspects one would imagine about the world that surrounds us and allows us to become and act as individuals both on the micro and macro scale.
The group exhibition “Between Utopia and Dystopia” is aimed at reflecting upon the notion of
landscape through the work of contemporary Chinese artists belonging to different generations
and backgrounds, but whose body of work is somehow related to the notion of landscape at large.
The artists invited to take part in the project, commissioned by Massimo De Carlo gallery and to be organized in the Hong Kong premises of the gallery are: Qiu Shihua, Meng Huang, Wang
Zhongjie, Jia Aili, Yang Xinguang, Wang Sishun, Duan Jianyu, Liu Xinyi and Liang Yuanwei. Each of them approaches the topic from his/her own unique perspective: landscapes suspended between real and ideal, external sights and inner visions filled with intimacy and meditative tones co-exist with images of a collapsing world presented with less idyllic but nevertheless true tones.
Liu Xinyi’s work often displays its rather unexpected double nature, undermining the viewer’s
certainty about reality, its perception, and the mechanisms underlying the cognitive processes
that regulate it. The landscapes present in his work are often territories marked by their
geo-political importance and strategic place within the global world.