Aranya Art Center is pleased to announce the upcoming exhibition, The Ground is Falling, featuring artist Xin Liu, curated by Iris Long. This will be Xin Liu’s first solo exhibition in mainland China.
Nothing is closer to our vision of the connection between human and non-human worlds than the cosmos today. That vision encompasses the perspectives of Russian cosmism, in which the universe resurrects and even immortalizes the past discussions of planetary engineering (Hansen, Bratton); and the many feminist ecologists reconsidering the bonds and legacies of being “more than human” in the cosmic past, present, and future, building a profoundly ethical sensibility rooted in reverence. This universe,loaded with visions of eternal life, faith in engineering, and a new ethics of species, is tending toward the ultimate or extreme in multiple ways.
In a sense, we seem to have completed not only the continuous metaphysicalengineering project that is “the world as a sphere” (Yuk), but also thephysical civilizational expansion that has followed the curve of that sphere.Over the last half-century, we have already witnessed the overview effect, symbolized by the blue dot, and seen the full reflection that BuckminsterFuller projected onto the Earth’s spherical structure. Perhaps now we ought to consider what lies beyond the overview and the blue dot—a planetary existence that can no longer be fully described as “spherical” and can no longer be limited by a vision of what’s out there. To some extent, the“outside” could disappear at any moment. While Blue Origin and SpaceXhave driven interest in human spaceflight, and even sparked bold statementsabout a new Space Age, the development of precision cosmology has further explored dark matter sitting silently in the void.
In the deep space narrative, the flames of rocket boosters and high-energy cosmic rays entangle the obvious and the hidden, the surface and the interior. The exhibition attempts to explore a non-vertical, topological perspective towards the universe. In her long-term projects, Xin Liu has situated herself on the boundary line between celestial objects, experiences of deep space, the cosmic ecosystem, and many other topics, as well as within continuous translations of vocabularies from multiple disciplines.
Within this exhibition, Liu retains her usual working methods developed around mapping, modeling, and precision instruments, and also constructs three narrative threads that run through the exhibition space: a potato seed that was transported to the International Space Station via manned spaceflight, an anonymous “white stone” from the sky, and a series of satellite signals radiating between the Earth’s orbit and surface. They all seem to be in motion: the instruments are rotating, the potato is sprouting, and the fallen object is rumbling. The pieces of technology, plants, debris, soil, shadows, and humans that appear in the exhibition seem to be governed by an unspoken, overarching rule, regardless of whether this can be called “the cosmos.” This invisible, overarching energy has more primitive associations and unfolds in a spiral circumscribing the exhibition’s verticality. Flying above the ground could mean taking an expedition, or it could imply going into exile, while falling into the Earth’s core could be a return to orbit. The one-way vertical universe is confronting an epistemological reorganization.Beyond the upper bounds of engineering and the limits of mechanics, the political, technological, and cultural power projected into space constructs another kind of deep time that extends into deep space. It forces us to reconsider everything that we have inscribed or woven: people, fragments, signals, space minerals, and various suppositions and deductions in space.The dimension and speed of deep space narratives are being gradually dissolved into more diverse, poetic, entangled, and internalized forms, which may allow cosmic engineering and cosmic metabolism to achieve henosis(oneness). What the exhibition projects is simply one version of many potential narratives; it is condensed into a specific deep space that one human body is narrating. Here, the whole world falls straight down.
Ding Yi
Three Flags
2023
Flag, air blower
Dimensions variable
Commissioned and produced by aranya plein air art project 2023
Installation view, aranya plein air art project
July 7th to October 29th, 2023
Photography Sun Shi
Courtesy of aranya plein air art project
Chen Ruofan
Botanical Bank: 54 Objects Transplanted
2023
Stainless steel, LED, video
400 × 400 × 400 cm
55:92 min.
Commissioned and produced by aranya plein air art project 2023
Installation view, aranya plein air art project
July 7th to October 29th, 2023
Photography Sun Shi
Courtesy of aranya plein air art project
Tom Friedman
Hazmat Love
2017
Stainless steel
150.5 × 118.1 × 107.3 cm
Installation view, aranya plein air art project
July 7th to October 29th, 2023
Photography Sun Shi
Courtesy of the artist, Lehmann Maupin, New York, Hong Kong,
Seoul, London and aranya plein air art project
Robert Mapplethorpe
Self Portrait
1981
Silver gelatin print
58.5 × 61 × 3.2 cm (framed)
Installation view, aranya plein air art project
July 7th to October 29th, 2023
Photography Sun Shi
Courtesy of aranya plein air art project
© Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation. Used by permission.
Courtesy Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, London · Paris · Salzburg · Seoul
Haegue Yang
Migratory DMZ Birds on Asymmetric Lens - Duiitt Duiitt Vessel (Gray-Backed Thrush)
2020
Soapstone, 3D printed resin
158 × 89 × 147 cm
Installation view, aranya plein art project
July 7th to October 29th, 2023
Photography Sun Shi
Courtesy of the artist, Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris
and aranya plein air art project
Charles Ray
School Play
2014
Painted fiberglass
193 × 58 × 39 cm
Installation view, aranya plein air art project
July 7th to October 29th, 2023
Photography Sun Shi
© Charles Ray
Courtesy Matthew Marks Gallery and aranya plein air art project
David Zink Yi
Washingtonia
2017
Stainless steel
520 × 100 × 100 cm each
Installation view, aranya plein air art project
July 7th to October 29th, 2023
Photography Sun Shi
Courtesy of the artist, KÖNIG GALERIE, Berlin / Seoul
and aranya plein air art project
Prinz Gholam
Stone Faces (Jin Shan Ling)
2023
Stone
Dimensions variable
Commissioned and produced by aranya plein air art project 2023
Installation view, aranya plein air art project
July 7th to October 29th, 2023
Photography Sun Shi
Courtesy of aranya plein air art project
Richard Long
Four Ways
2014
Delabole Slate from Cornwall
490 × 498 × 58 cm
Installation view, aranya plein air art project
July 7th to October 29th, 2023
Photography Sun Shi© Richard Long
Courtesy of Lisson Gallery and aranya plein air art project
Liang Shuo
Little House
2023
Mosaic tiles
Dimensions variable
Commissioned and produced by aranya plein air art project 2023
Installation view, aranya plein air art project
July 7th to October 29th, 2023
Photography Sun Shi
Courtesy of aranya plein air art project
Alina Chaiderov
Phoenix
2023
Stainless steel, cable protection tube
512 × 300 × 100 cm
Produced by aranya plein air art project 2023
Installation view, aranya plein air art project
July 7th to October 29th, 2023
Photography Sun Shi
Courtesy of aranya plein air art project
Christine Sun Kim
A Permanent Tourist In A Foreign Language
2023
Inkjet printing on stainless-steel sign post
225 × 150 cm × 7 parts
Commissioned and produced by aranya plein air art project 2023
Installation view, aranya plein air art project
July 7th to October 29th, 2023
Photography Sun Shi
Courtesy of aranya plein air art project
Vivian Suter
Untitled
Undated
Mixed media on canvas
Dimensions variable
Installation view, aranya plein air art project
July 7th to October 29th, 2023
Photography Sun Shi
Courtesy of the artist, Gladstone Gallery
and aranya plein air art project
Nabuqi
We
2023
3D printing resin, paint
235 × 146 × 75 cm
Commissioned and produced by aranya plein air art project 2023
Installation view, aranya plein air art project
July 7th to October 29th, 2023
Photography Sun ShiCourtesy of aranya plein air art project
Sylvie Fleury
Giant Mushroom
2008
Fiberglass, metallic car paint
260 × 250 × 250 cm
Installation view, aranya plein air art project
July 7th to October 29th, 2023
Photography Sun Shi
Courtesy of the artist, Almine Rech
and aranya plein air art project
Su Chang
Intersect
2023
Plaster, aluminate, hemp and other mixed materials
Dimensions variable
Commissioned and produced by aranya plein air art project 2023
Installation view, aranya plein air art project
July 7th to October 29th, 2023
Photography Sun Shi
Courtesy of aranya plein air art project
Tony Cragg
Accurate Figure
2011
Carrara Marble
206 × 83 × 91 cm
Installation view, aranya plein air art project
July 7th to October 29th, 2023
Photography Sun Shi
Courtesy of aranya plein air art project
Isabelle Cornaro
Untitled (column #2 & column #3)
2014
Steel structure with black resin castings
66 × 274 × 66 cm each
Installation view, aranya plein air art project
July 7th to October 29th, 2023
Photography Sun Shi
Courtesy of aranya plein air art project
Chen Xiaoyi
Invisible Liquid
2023
UV print on aluminum plate
Dimensions variable
Commissioned and produced by aranya plein air art project 2023
Installation view, aranya plein air art project
July 7th to October 29th, 2023
Photography Sun Shi
Courtesy of aranya plein air art project
Michelle Wang Yiyi
Red Berries
2023
Hawthorn berry, aluminum wire
Dimensions variable
Commissioned and produced by aranya plein air art project 2023
Installation view, aranya plein air art project
July 7th to October 29th, 2023
Photography Zaiye Studio
Courtesy of aranya plein air art project
Katinka Bock
Parasite Fountain
2019
Bronze, transparent PVC tube, water pump
Fish: 85 cm
Column: 300 × 30 cm
Installation view, aranya plein air art project
July 7th to October 29th, 2023
Photography Sun Shi
Courtesy of aranya plein air art project
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