It is not the first time that Christopher Le Brun, one of the leading British painters celebrated internationally since the 1980s, has entered the contemporary art scene in China. He had already been there in 2019 with an exhibition organized by the Lisson Gallery in Shanghai and again in 2021 with two interventions, at the Red Brick Art Museum and at the MoCAUP. An artist who ranges from figurative to abstract, who fluently engages in various disciplines, painting, sculpture and printing, Le Brun is also a public figure who has held prestigious positions, for example he was president of the Royal Academy of Arts in London from 2011 to 2019. In his new solo exhibition in Beijing he presents Phases of the Moon, a multi-panel painting that reveals the cyclical nature of his practice with a lunar motif that dates back to one of his first oil paintings and Lontano, a triptych that shares the title with a piece by the composer Gyorgy Ligeti written in 1967, which embodies the artist's belief that painting should primarily have a sensual and emotional appeal.
On display are 74 series of works created by Qi Baishi. Among these, a 25-page album entitled Flower Drawings found in the Academy's archives, after having been buried in dust for decades, will be shown for the first time.
On the occasion of the 700th anniversary of Marco Polo's death and the 20th anniversary of the China-Italy strategic partnership, the exhibition offers a narrative of the compelling story of Marco Polo, an Italian merchant, traveler and storyteller, still remembered and relevant to our lives.
Dystopian Visions of a Not-So-Distant Future in the Works of Moon & Jeon
The exhibition focuses on redefining the relationship between humans, not humans and nature in the era of AI. The artists take an alternative perspective and approach to climate change, embracing the concept of coexistence.