Friday, October 14, 2022
5-6PM Opening Reception
6-7PM Artist Talk & Exhibition Walkthrough

456 Broadway, 3rd floor
(elevator available)

Please join us for the Opening Reception and Artist Talk of Furong Zhang's solo exhibition Crossing the Dry Sea at Gallery 456.

Artist Statement:

My paintings deal with personal and collective emotions of being a first-generation immigrant in America, revolving around themes of alienation, displacement, and self-contradiction. I use a deconstructed and allegorical approach to create my painted scenes, incorporating my memories and experiences of my native country, China, as well as my current residence in America. My past experience during the Cultural Revolution in China, a time of social unrest, widespread propaganda, violence, and expected obedience to authority, has informed the underlying mood of my paintings and my questions of the place of the individual self in relation to its society. In my work I am interested in dualisms and tensions between the preservation of history and erasure, belonging and alienation, and material body and soul. I juxtapose symbols of construction, detritus, ritual, and ambivalence to reference my Chinese American immigrant experience and personal emotions that are in flux alongside historical and contemporary social environments.

About the Artist:

Furong Zhang was born and raised in Shanghai, China during the Cultural Revolution. In 1977 he attended the Shanghai Normal University, majoring in oil painting. He received his MFA from Central Academy of Fine Art, Beijing in 1987. In 1989, Zhang was part of the controversial first China Avant-Garde art show at Beijing's National Fine Art Museum. During that time he participated in various exhibitions held at the Beijing and Shanghai Fine Art Museums. Since immigrating to America in 1989, he has attended residencies at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, and exhibited nationally and internationally at various museums and galleries, including Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, Bellefonte Art Museum, SPRING/BREAK Art Show, and Yale University. He currently lives and works in central Pennsylvania.

Grammy-nominated bass baritone Hao Jiang Tian speaks about his new book TURANDOT AT THE ARENA, a collection of essays, at a press conference held at CAAC.

....additional press coverage

LMCC is thrilled to announce an open call for 2023 Manhattan Arts Grants, a funding
opportunity for artists and communities! LMCC’s 2023 Manhattan Arts Grants application for
Manhattan-based artists, collectives and organizations is now open. Application deadline:
September 13, 2022, 5PM for projects taking place in 2023. Applicants eligible for City & State
funds can now request up to $10,000 in project support. LMCC is also excited to partner with
the Howard Gilman Foundation to offer additional project support to performing arts applicants.
Visit LMCC.net to learn more about Creative Engagement, Creative Learning, UMEZ Arts
Engagement, and to register for an interactive information session webinar this summer.
Chinese American Arts Council – 美华艺术协会 is hosting a Creative Engagement & Creative
Learning information session at Chatham Square Library on Monday, August 1 at 3:00PM. Meet
LMCC staff, learn about program requirements, ask questions and seek guidance related to
your project.
Creative Engagement & Creative Learning Information Session
Chatham Square Library, 33 East Broadway, New York, NY 10002
Hosted in partnership with Chinese American Arts Council – 美华艺术协会.
本次說明會全程以中文進行。
This session presented in Mandarin Chinese.
點此報名 | https://www.eventbrite.com/e/creative-engagement-creative-learning-tickets-375381705787
Attendance is required for first-time applicants to LMCC’s Manhattan Arts Grants.

In remembrance of the Chinese Opera Master Tong Zhi Ling, The Tong Xiao Ling Chinese Opera Ensemble will present beijng opera "The Matchmaker" at Flushing Town Hall.

Date: June 5th, 2022, 1pm
Location: Flushing Town Hall, Queens
137-35 Northern Blvd, Flushing, NY 11354

....more

Friday, April 8, 5-7PM
6-7PM: Nancy Huang will open with a poetry reading, followed by Rachel Hsu's Artist Talk, concluding with Q&A with Jiaoyang Li

456 Broadway, 3rd floor
(elevator available)

Please join us for the Opening Reception and Artist Talk of Rachel Hsu's solo exhibition Heart in My Mouth at Gallery 456.

Exhibition Statement:

Rachel Hsu’s solo exhibition, Heart in My Mouth, attends to the contradictions inherent in marginalized existence and explores the varied politics of and apprehensions toward assimilation and exceptionalism. By engaging language as a material, the exhibition negotiates racial identity and heightens the yearning that emerges from distance and displacement by gradually unfolding absence, relational ruptures, and slippages in translation.

Fetch the Moon from the Seabed (海底撈月) is a long-form poem that investigates yearning and immigration through language and translation. Taking the form of a Chinese language-learning workbook, the poem reveals the emotional and physical exertion that speaking a second language and cultural assimilation requires. Mental exertion is further heightened in the translation of emotional endurance into physical persistence in Tending. The work invites viewers to remove their shoes and walk across an expanse of river stones to experience the fluctuating pain and rejuvenation of reflexology. Arranged according to size, shape, and texture, moments of respite are diffused amongst acute pressure. A reimagined pressure point diagram is available as a takeaway—two distinct narratives reveal themes of tenderness and violence, pain and healing, grief and joy. Excellence is the Goal (the goal is death) further engages coexisting contradictions and calls for a critical examination of the relationship between exceptionalism, assimilation, and American violence. Weighed against Tou Thao’s participation in the murder of George Floyd, anti-Asian hate crimes, the Atlanta spa shootings, and attention to Asian lives, American assimilation and human value are inextricably tied to violence and death. The out-of-reach ship’s bell speaks to a grand, impossible ambition that requires immense effort. Commonly used on modern ships as a warning signal, the ship’s bell also recalls the voyage itself—of leaving and arriving. Just underneath the bell reads: I want so badly to survive this.

Whether it’s a slow traverse across space or an impossible reach, the exhibition Heart in My Mouth demands the effort of translation, healing, and critical self examination to be felt and endured. As Cathy Park Hong writes in Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning, “If you want to truly understand someone’s accented English, you have to slow down and listen with your body.” How can we better attend to one another? How can we care for our entangled pain and tenderness?

About the Artist:

Rachel Hsu is an interdisciplinary artist who works with visual art, language, and poetry. She received an MFA in sculpture from the Tyler School of Art and Architecture and a BFA from Western Washington University. She has exhibited in New York and Philadelphia, and her writing has been published in Honey Literary and APIARY Magazine. Originally from Seattle, WA, she currently lives and works in Philadelphia, PA.

RSVP for the opening here: https://forms.gle/1bjQSBams3T8xQmA7

Friday, February 4, 5-7PM
5:00PM Musical performance by cellist/composer Francesca Ter-Berg
5:30PM Artist Talk hosted by curator Kimberly Reinagel with virtual guest speakers art critic Robert C. Morgan, art historian Gail Levin, award-winning poet Mai Mang, and contemporary art researcher Fang Zhang joining via Zoom

456 Broadway, 3rd floor
(elevator available)

Please join us for Zhen Guo's Artist Talk at Gallery 456.

Artist Statement:

In recent years, my feminist art has turned to the concept of "mother" and its connection to women, men, and the world in general. There may be no daughters, sisters, or wives in our lives, but everyone has a mother, and “mother earth” is the giver and sustainer of all life. Mother and Earth are inextricably linked in tradition, philosophy, science, and our minds, just as they are in my art. Mother Earth and Human Mother (and all women) are surrounded by the destructive forces of our time.

“Muted Landscape” presents a vision of our planet that is both expansive and terrifying, a landscape as if viewed from miles high, defaced and stained by the gray color and the sheer height. Towering peaks merge with rivers, lakes, craters, and sheer walls, figurative but more abstract, losing their individual character and value. In reality, driven by population and industrial growth, unrestrained exploitation and pollution, our planet is riddled with holes and out of balance, disappearing in front of us without making a sound. Our Earth, the mother of all of us, silent as the pieces are dismembered and burned. So too, the mothers and women of this world, their bodies, their rights and their spirits, are constantly under attack. They are also told to "shut up" and their voices were muted so they can’t be heard.

About the Artist:

Zhen Guo was born in Shandong Province, China, and experienced the “Cultural Revolution” during her teen years. She graduated from the Chinese Painting Department of the China Academy of Art in 1982 and was hired there to teach in its Chinese Art Department.

Zhen Guo is one of the earliest explorers of ink art after the reform and opening up of China. She immigrated to the United States in 1986 and established Zhen Guo Art Studio in New York City in 1988. Guo has participated in many international art exhibitions and has long been committed to the research and exploration of contemporary feminist art.

Major auction houses such as Sotheby’s have repeatedly promoted her works. In recent years, Guo has curated and participated in: “Existence: International Women’s Art Exhibition” in Changsha, China; “Please Touch, Body Boundaries,” a large-scale exhibition at Mana Contemporary Art in the United States; “Asian Women Artists Exhibition”; at Jeonbuk Provincial Museum of Art, South Korea, and many more abroad and in the United States.

Zhen Guo now lives and works in New York City.

Saturday, December 18, 1-5PM
2:00PM Artist Talk
2:45PM Musical Performance

456 Broadway, 3rd floor
(elevator available)

Please join us for the opening reception of Zelene Jiang Schlosberg's solo exhibition Flâneur Redux at Gallery 456.

2PM - Artist Talk: A conversation between Zelene Jiang Schlosberg and Prof Miki Kaneda (Boston University)

2:45PM - Performance/Improvisation by Jamie Jordan, soprano

Exhibition Statement:

Nous sommes tous des flâneurs. After lockdowns and quarantines, the ability to cast about city streets with no clear purpose in mind other than moving one’s body and observing one’s surroundings is not to be taken lightly. And while it is still possible to assume the air of a dandy (Baudelaire) or a critic of modern life (Benjamin), wanderings during These Times seem to propose a new paradigm, one in which one scurries away from a fellow ambler, and in an urban environment decidedly devoid of bustle.

Given such an anxious context, the vibrancy of Zelene Jiang Schlosberg’s latest works might seem surprising, even welcoming. A general sense of abstraction under closer scrutiny leads to observations of helicopters, cats, doors, flora and most tellingly, alien(ated) creatures, which may or may not be self-portraits. Whether these icons constitute figurative comfort food or something more apprehensive and conceptual is up for grabs.

Jiang Schlosberg begins her art making process with sketches and then proceeds to cut canvases before applying acrylic paint and deciding on an ordering scheme. The idea of stacking, juxtaposing, and layering responds to her intense study of Old Master paintings, including triptychs, as well as the Eastern influence of Chinese ink paintings. The effect also responds to the sense of general repetition our recent times have produced: patterned itineraries without end, with discoveries made daily, even if in a desultory fashion.

About the Artist:

Zelene Jiang Schlosberg (b.1977) is a Chinese-American artist living and working in Chicago who has been hailed for her bold approach to art-making that has resonances in both painting and sculpture. Solo exhibitions include Chinese American Arts Council Gallery (NYC), North Central College (IL), University of Illinois at Chicago, East Central College (MO) and Woldt Gallery London. She has participated in numerous group shows, including at Zhoub Art Center, CICA Art Museum Korea and The Royal British Society of Sculptors. Her painting “Directions #0” was featured on the cover of composer John Liberatore's 2018 debut CD album, "Line Drawings” (Albany Records). Her works can also be seen in Artist Talk Magazine (UK), Studio Visit (US) and Art Market Magazine (Israel). An enthusiastic lover of contemporary classical new music, she frequently collaborates with notable avant-garde musicians, who also collect her work, in addition to several museums. She is a participant at Context Art Miami (2021) with Fabrik Projects Gallery. Jiang Schlosberg received a master’s degree from Beijing Normal University.

RSVP for the opening here: https://forms.gle/BKva3tkKoLxs8BrZ9

Friday, December 3rd, 6-8PM

456 Broadway, 3rd floor
(elevator available)


Please join us for a discussion by artist Chenlin Cai about his recent and past works, with focus on his exhibition "Body•Mark" at Gallery 456. Hosted by poet and artist Jiaoyang LI, who will lead the audience on a poetic journey in appreciation of the show. Get inspired by Cai’s paintings to create your own ekphrastic poetry. Refreshments will be provided.

ARTIST STATEMENT

I create paintings with visual narratives about relationships between humans and our environment, historical moments and contemporary events. I borrowed some thought-provoking historical moments from the album of time, extracted the images out from the original context, and placed them in the current time and space, thereby creating a visual contradiction and conflict. I visually express the effects of catastrophic events on the human body in a beautiful and poetic way.

My works fuse oil painting medium with traditional Chinese ink-painting expression. My unorthodox use of oil paint on nontraditional surfaces allows me to create artificial cellular structures that divide the images into a mosaic texture. I created a unique texture to mimic the biological cellular structure from an under-the-microscopic perspective. In these paintings, the organic microscopic structures and the macroscopic natural landscape combine in mystifying presentation of the dislocation and overlap of transparent materials.

The transparency of the material brings more visual expressiveness to the overlapping images, therefore, a new form of observation is created. This form expresses the biology of the image as a social metaphor. I try to bring a different visual experience for viewers to ponder the questions about the consequences of human behavior in a wider time-space continuum.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Chenlin Cai is a multidisciplinary visual artist living in Philadelphia. Cai received his MFA from two world-renowned universities in fine arts, the Tsinghua University in China and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia.

Cai's works innovatively combine traditional Chinese ink painting with contemporary art expressions to create a unique visual image that fuses art and science. The uniqueness of his artistic style has caught the eye of collectors world-wide, including many Chinese and American collectors, and the Copelouzos Family Art Museum in Athens, Greece.

Cai has held solo exhibitions in Philadelphia and New York, including solo exhibition in Freeman's Auction Gallery, Philadelphia in 2018. Cai has participated in many art exhibitions such as New York Artexpo in 2021 and the 12th Florence Biennale in Italy 2019. Cai has won honors, including the “Excellent Artist Award” in “Eye Art•2017 International Youth Art Exhibition” in United Nations Headquarters, New York; and the “Coverly Smith Prize” in the Woodmere Art Museum’s 79th Juried Exhibition, Philadelphia.

Cai served as a judge for the National Youth Drawing Contest hosted by the World Journal for two consecutive years. Cai is also a productive mural artist. He has installed dozens of murals in the United States and China such as at Xuchang City Museum, Korean Cultural Center in Beijing, First Street Green Culture Park in New York, and 10th Street Plaza in Philadelphia Chinatown.

Cai is currently working with his artist team on creating a grand mural project for celebrating the 150th anniversary of Philadelphia Chinatown.

ABOUT THE HOST JIAOYANG LI

Jiaoyang Li is a poet and interdisciplinary artist currently based in New York. Her work has been supported by the New York Foundation for the Arts, British Council, New York Live Arts Center, The Immigrants Artist Biennial, Performa Biennial, Milan Contemporary Art Center, The 9th international Poetry Film festival, New York Movie Award and more. Her literary work has appeared in Gulf Coast, Blackbox Manifold, The Poetry Review, The Los Angeles Review of Books China Channel, 3:AM, Datableedzine, Harana Poetry, Chinese News Magazine, Spittoon Magazine, and elsewhere. She serves as the co-founder of Accent Accent, and the interdisciplinary poetic practice journal 叵CLIP.


Please RSVP to attend the Artist Talk: https://forms.gle/gdKJP226qNuF7qgQ8

Friday, November 19, 5:00-7:30PM
Chinese American Arts Council
456 Broadway, 3rd Floor
New York, NY 10013

Writing across Borders: Chinese Female Writers on the Intersection of Language, Cinema, and Theatre

"Settling down on a foreign land is like digging one's own grave. But once it's done, it's time for rebirth," said Zhang Zhen once in an interview. Leaving China decades ago as a poet, Zhang Zhen reinvented herself through film studies, anchoring herself to a wider world and eventually becoming a Professor at the New York University Tisch School. A Senior Programmer at Google, Mu Ming uses science fiction as a way for self-expression, invigorating the genre with Classical Chinese literary tradition. Zhu Yi, who holds an MFA in playwriting from Columbia University, explores the rather strange life of a wanderer in plays as well as short stories and screenplays.
What do film, theatre, and writing share in common and how do they differ? How does the diasporic experience shape one's relationship with language and her identity? What does the future look like for film, science fiction, and theatre in the post-pandemic world?

Join Zhang Zhen, Mu Ming, Zhu Yi, and founders of Accent Accent, Zhong Na and Li Jiaoyang, at the roundtable talk, Writing Across Borders.

Register here via Eventbrite: Writing Across Borders (Registration is required for attendance)


GUEST SPEAKERS:

Zhang Zhen, Mu Ming, Zhu Yi, Zhong Na, Li Jiaoyang


Hosted by Accent Accent and co-sponsored by Chinese American Arts Council

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Zhen Zhang is an associate professor of cinema studies and history at NYU Shanghai. She is also director and founder of the Asian Film and Media Initiative at the Department of Cinema Studies at NYU. She holds a PhD from the University of Chicago and an MA from the University of Iowa.

Zhu Yi is an award-winning playwright, based in NYC, born and raised in Shanghai, China. MFA in Playwriting, Columbia University. She received the First Prize at 2015 World Sinophone Drama Competition, and Shanghai Drama Valley's 2015 Outstanding Playwright of the Year Award. She is an alumni of Ensemble Studio Theatre's Obie Award-winning playwrights group Youngblood, 2012-2013 Emerging Artist Fellow at New York Theatre Workshop, a member of the Royal Court Theatre's International Playwrights Programme, Ma-Yi Writers Lab, Clubbed Thumb Theater's writers group, and Dramatists Guild of America.

Congyun “Mu Ming” Gu is a speculative fiction writer.Mu Ming: Real name Gu Congyun, graduated from the Department of Intelligence Science at Peking University and the Department of Computer Science at the University of Pennsylvania. Google programmer, presumably the author of the novel. In 2016, he began to write short and novel novels. His works are scattered in publications such as "Flower City", "World of Science Fiction", "Selected Chinese Literature" and various online platforms, essays, anthologies and annual selections. Some works have been translated into Italian, English, etc. He has won the Douban Reading Essay Competition Award, Future Science Fiction Master Award, Galaxy Award, Chinese Science Fiction Nebula Award, etc. He has published an Italian collection of short stories "Painting the World", and a collection of Chinese short stories "Wan Zhuanhuan" will be published soon.

Na Zhong arrived in the U.S. in 2016 in pursuit of her MFA in Creative Writing at The New School. Since then her work has received recognition and support from the Bette Howland Award, the New School Chapbook Contest, the Joan Jakobson Fellowship, the Pushcart Prize, the Tin House Workshop, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and most recently, the Center for Fiction in New York City. A cultural podcaster and the Chinese translator of Sally Rooney’s three books, she is completing her first novel. She is a sucker for giant trees.

Jiaoyang Li is a poet and interdisciplinary artist currently based in New York. Her work has been supported by the New York Foundation for the Arts, British Council, New York Live Arts Center, The Immigrants Artist Biennial, Performa Biennial, Milan Contemporary Art Center, The 9th international Poetry Film festival, New York Movie Award and more. Her literary work has appeared in Gulf Coast, Blackbox Manifold, The Poetry Review, The Los Angeles Review of Books China Channel, 3:AM, Datableedzine, Harana Poetry, Chinese News Magazine, Spittoon Magazine, and elsewhere. She serves as the co-founder of Accent Accent, and the interdisciplinary poetic practice journal 叵CLIP.

ABOUT THE HOST

Accent Accent, Founded by Na Zhong and Jiaoyang Li to redefine Chinese Literature in the Anglophone literary scene, Accent Society is a platform for Chinese writers and artists around the world, we are dedicated to nurturing and supporting Chinese writers who write across borders(Languages/Countries/Disciplinaries). Our mission is to discover, cultivate, and promote underrepresented voices and daring artistic visions.

Gallery 456 is pleased to present Chenlin Cai’s second New York solo exhibition Body•Mark featuring his recent works made between 2017 and 2021.

The artist combines medical images with artistic expression language to create a unique painting style. In his works, oil paint is diluted by mixing multiple media to become transparent and have ink-like fluidity. The brushwork of oriental ink and wash collides with the formal language of Western oil painting, and the surface texture of the work presents a cell structure similar to that seen under a microscope. This organic texture and visual language are a prominent personal label in his works.

The sudden pandemic has changed the way of life of people all over the world, and the trauma caused by the virus has left indelible scars or marks both physically and psychologically. How to treat the objective reality that diseases will coexist with humans for a long time is changing society's attitude towards diseases and patients. The awe and curiosity of life inspired mankind to explore the true meaning of life. Who am I, where am I from, and where will I go?

The artist painted the microstructure of cells and viruses on the surface of macroscopic objects such as human bodies and landscapes. The human cell tissue under the microscope shows a strange structure and texture. Observing the cell structure under this microscopic perspective brings a surreal experience. After the life structure from the micro perspective is enlarged, it presents a fragile beauty and a strange sense of fear. The spreading cellular structure gathers and reorganizes in the human body, just like the reprogramming of life again and again.

The human body reprogramed by cells, the landscape made by human bones under X-rays, and the transparent multi-layer paintings extended in the space. Chenlin Cai attempts to expand the visual expression and sense of form in his works, in order to provide a new way of viewing to art.

ARTIST STATEMENT

I create paintings with visual narratives about relationships between humans and our environment, historical moments and contemporary events. I borrowed some thought-provoking historical moments from the album of time, extracted the images out from the original context, and placed them in the current time and space, thereby creating a visual contradiction and conflict. I visually express the effects of catastrophic events on the human body in a beautiful and poetic way.

My works fuse oil painting medium with traditional Chinese ink-painting expression. My unorthodox use of oil paint on nontraditional surfaces allows me to create artificial cellular structures that divide the images into a mosaic texture. I created a unique texture to mimic the biological cellular structure from an under-the-microscopic perspective. In these paintings, the organic microscopic structures and the macroscopic natural landscape combine in mystifying presentation of the dislocation and overlap of transparent materials.

The transparency of the material brings more visual expressiveness to the overlapping images, therefore, a new form of observation is created. This form expresses the biology of the image as a social metaphor. I try to bring a different visual experience for viewers to ponder the questions about the consequences of human behavior in a wider time-space continuum.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Chenlin Cai is a multidisciplinary visual artist living in Philadelphia. Cai received his MFA from two world-renowned universities in fine arts, the Tsinghua University in China and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia.

Cai's works innovatively combine traditional Chinese ink painting with contemporary art expressions to create a unique visual image that fuses art and science. The uniqueness of his artistic style has caught the eye of collectors world-wide, including many Chinese and American collectors, and the Copelouzos Family Art Museum in Athens, Greece.

Cai has held solo exhibitions in Philadelphia and New York, including solo exhibition in Freeman's Auction Gallery, Philadelphia in 2018. Cai has participated in many art exhibitions such as New York Artexpo in 2021 and the 12th Florence Biennale in Italy 2019. Cai has won honors, including the “Excellent Artist Award” in “Eye Art•2017 International Youth Art Exhibition” in United Nations Headquarters, New York; and the “Coverly Smith Prize” in the Woodmere Art Museum’s 79th Juried Exhibition, Philadelphia.

Cai served as a judge for the National Youth Drawing Contest hosted by the World Journal for two consecutive years. Cai is also a productive mural artist. He has installed dozens of murals in the United States and China such as at Xuchang City Museum, Korean Cultural Center in Beijing, First Street Green Culture Park in New York, and 10th Street Plaza in Philadelphia Chinatown.

Cai is currently working with his artist team on creating a grand mural project for celebrating the 150th anniversary of Philadelphia Chinatown.


Opening Reception: Friday, November 12, 2021, 6 - 8PM

Please RSVP to attend the opening: https://forms.gle/9dqUhJs9egViT6py5

Sunday, October 10, 3-5pm
Conversation begins at 3:30pm

456 Broadway, 3rd floor
(elevator available)


Please join us for a conversation between artist Xiaojing Yan and curator Lilly Wei about Yan's current exhibition "Pines, Needles, Mushrooms, Ink, Paint: A Botanical Rhapsody."

A catalogue with an essay by Lilly Wei accompanies the exhibition.

Xiaojing Yan is a Chinese-Canadian artist. Combining her Chinese roots and education at Nanjing Arts Institute (B.F.A., 2000) with higher education at George Brown College in Toronto (2004) and an M.F.A. in sculpture at Indiana University of Pennsylvania (2007) her work reflects her journey through these various cultures, arriving at her own personal vocabulary. Her unique point of view brings together the past and the present, encompasses culture and nature, art and science.

Most recently, she has had solo shows at Hermès Maison, Shanghai, China, Richmond Art Gallery, Richmond, BC, Canada and Suzhou Museum, Suzhou, China, Varley Art Gallery, Markham, ON, Canada. Yan has also completed public art projects in Canada and China including her 2018 installation Cloudscape at the Royal Ontario Museum.

Lilly Wei (b. Chengdu, China) is a New York-based independent curator, writer, journalist and critic whose area of interest is global contemporary art, in particular emerging art and artists, writing frequently on international exhibitions and biennials. Her work has appeared in dozens of publications world-wide and she is a longtime contributor to Art in America, a contributing editor at ARTnews, and a former contributing editor at Art Asia Pacific in the United States. The author of numerous catalogues and monographs, she has curated exhibitions in the United States, Europe and Asia. Wei lectures frequently on critical and curatorial practices and sits on the board of several not-for-profit art organizations. She has an MA in art history from Columbia University, New York.

PLEASE RSVP HERE: https://forms.gle/wUVJPeFr7ySiJCaJA

Gallery 456 is pleased to present Xiaojing Yan's first New York solo exhibition Pines, Needles, Mushrooms, Ink, Paint: A Botanical Rhapsody. Ghostly landscapes wavering on silk, sculpture, and abstract paintings make up Xiaojing Yan’s first solo exhibition in New York. It features a site-specific installation, two unusual portrait busts of a young girl, and a few abstract ink paintings on paper, all from 2016-2020. Some of the materials she uses are surprising even if we are accustomed to contemporary artists’ idiosyncratic, unfettered choices.

The installation, Mountain of Pines (2017), was inspired by the imagined, impossibly serene landscapes of traditional shan shui (mountain sea) paintings, which emerged in the 5thcentury and are synonymous for many with Chinese painting.

Yan also innovatively, idiosyncratically balances the botanical and the artistic in her work, perhaps most strikingly in a series of remarkable sculptures made from lingzhi mushrooms, Lingzhi Girl, made between 2016-2020, all life-sized, recalling the many Chinese folktales and legends about the its magical properties—healing, long life, and even immortality—that were told to her as a child. and remain fascinating to her.

The series Naturally Natural is another instance of Yan's exploration of collaboration between artist, materials, and chance, a variant on the theme of Lingzhi Girl, using acrylic, Chinese ink, and yupo paper.

About the Artist

Yan (born in Xuzhou City, Jiangsu, China in 1978 and based in Toronto, Canada) straddles two cultures, influenced by both although she is most deeply invested in representations of her native heritage. Her preference is evident in her subject matter, often based on traditional Chinese landscape paintings, aesthetic canons and its ancient folktales, legends, healing treatises, spiritual teachings, and philosophies. Landscape and the concept of place are central to her practice, infused with the émigré’s complicated sense of cultural and psychological bifurcation.

Yan left China in her early 20s after graduating with a BFA from Nanjing University of the Arts in 2000. She then earned an MFA in sculpture at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Indiana, Pennsylvania in 2007, afterwards settling in Toronto where she has lived ever since.

Yan’s project is exemplary for these disorienting, unprecedented times and reminds us that we must live in accord with nature--or suffer the catastrophic consequences.

Opening Reception: Friday, October 8, 2021
2PM – 6PM

RSVP to this event is required. Please RSVP at the below link:
https://forms.gle/qd12p1pwfMEp2S6x5