Group Exhibition Hushen Art Museum,Shanghai
Artists: Feng Zhixuan, Guo Donglai, Liu Chao, Wang Xin, Yang Shen, Ying Xinxun, Zhao Bo, Zhang Haijun
Academic Host: Wang Kaimei
Opening Reception: 2025/7/12, 15:00-18:00
Duration: 2025/7/12 - 2025/8/17 (Tuesday - Sunday, 10:00-18:30)
Venue: Hushen Art Museum, 3rd Floor, No.3 The Bund, Zhongshan East 1st Road, Huangpu District, Shanghai
“The Sun Rises in the East and Shines upon My Pavilion by the Fusang Tree.”
——Nine Songs—The Prince of the East by Quyuan
In the height of summer, under the scorching sky, the sun reigns supreme — its brilliance breathing life into all things on Earth, its presence announcing an undeniable dominion over the natural world. Yet, when placed against the vast scale of the cosmos, this eternal star that has inspired countless hymns of human civilization is but a speck of dust in the Milky Way, a fleeting spark in the universe. It is difficult, if not impossible, for human beings to fully grasp or imagine the deep-time narratives of Earth, the solar system, and the cosmos within the limits of a single lifetime. As the only known intelligent life within this expanse, when we look up at the sky, we experience a resonance between grandeur and insignificance — a simultaneous awe and humility. It is in this intricate entanglement between the creator of life on Earth and its sentient inhabitants that the human story under the sun begins to unfold.
This exhibition, using the "sun" as a visual metaphor, invites us on a journey of exploration through the works of eight contemporary Chinese artists. Together, they imagine new narrative possibilities of life under the sun. Zhao Bo’s Cruel Wonderland immerses viewers in a haunting primeval forest—does it depict a pre-human Earth or a post-civilizational future? These ancient landscapes, transformed over millions of years into fossil fuels, have powered human industrial progress. Yet in the face of climate change and planetary warming, does this "wonderland" now offer only a "cruel" mirror reflecting the depletion of natural resources in the Anthropocene? In contrast, Guo Donglai’s practice offers a measure of solace. The artist reassembles found objects from nature—trees, stones—on canvas to construct a new harmony between the organic and the artificial. His work disrupts the binary of visible and invisible, of presence and absence, as he engages with a philosophical question that echoes from ancient times to today: if a tree falls in a forest with no one around, does it make a sound? His art probes the possibility of coexistence between humanity and the natural world.
In Wang Xin’s paintings, abstracted green foliage resembles the skin of the Earth, where photosynthesis ignites new possibilities of life. Her canvases trace the sedimented memory of bodies rooted in the land, evolving into a personal geology. In stark contrast, Feng Zhixuan’s Wishing Pool detaches from the laws of photosynthesis. This microcosmic stage—molded from ancient ritual and futuristic technology—plays out under the glaring spotlight of the adage “there is nothing new under the sun.” The artist’s imagination becomes a conduit between Marco Polo’s medieval voyages and interstellar sci-fi odysseys, revealing narratives hidden within the ruins of collapsed civilizations. Yang Shen's protagonists are fictional explorers: colonial-era plant collectors and animal hunters caught under the tropical sun. His vividly colored landscapes, reminiscent of W. Somerset Maugham’s literary gaze on the tropics, evoke the thin veneer of so-called civilization, peeling away to expose something more primal, where moral clarity dissolves in the glare.
As Earth orbits the sun, it brings forth the rhythm of seasons and the passage of time. On this one-way journey with no return, time is the imprint of human engagement with the world. Liu Chao’s Old Boxer triptych captures cinematic fragments of time: an aging man with boxing gloves stands before blocks of color, waiting for the next round. The solitary boxer, like Munch's late self-portraits caught between clocks and beds, embodies humanity’s struggle against time—an eventual surrender to decay and death, yet also a quest for transcendence through reflection, poetry, and art. In Ying Xinxun’s work, an angel's wing balanced precariously on a cactus encapsulates both nobility and absurdity, the sacred suspended between earth and sky. In Zhang Haijun’s visual labyrinths, composed of color fields and shifting lines, painting itself becomes a process of transformation—fracturing, folding, and spiraling—steadily ascending toward a spiritual and poetic summit.
Human beings strive for material sustenance and spiritual elevation through labor and contemplation. On this path of inquiry and self-discovery, imagination, artistic creation, scientific skepticism, and philosophical reflection converge to ignite the light of civilization. Art, in its formal expression, gives shape to this deeply human pursuit of understanding and aesthetic desire. This exhibition stands as a modest offering to these grand, enduring themes.
Text by Wang Kaimei
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