Source: Qinhuangdao Tour Strategy
The opening exhibition entitled "Post-Nature" of the Dune Art Museum, the new member of UCCA, was presented in Aranya Community of Qinhuangdao from October 13, 2018 to April 7, 2019.
These works explore how mankind discovered and invented the natural world. Designed by Li Hu and Huang Wenqing from OPEN Architecture Office according to the unique space of UCCA dunes, the Dune Art Museum is hidden under the sand dunes in Golden Coast Community of Aranya. The exhibition was planned by Luan Shixuan, UCCA curator. The exhibition works, the cell-shaped exhibition space in which the art works are displayed, the surrounding beaches and the rising sea level matches in a unique way.
“Post-Nature”, the title of the exhibition, implies changes in the natural environment itself and changes in human understanding of nature. The constant invasion of human being has caused a permanent change in the environment, and many scholars have thus declared that we have entered a new era of geology - the human period.
The "Carpenter's Scraps" convey the power of the framework to the audience. These elaborate man-made sculptures look like scraps of carpentry. However, the materials used in these sculptures, copper and acrylic, were cast rather than carved which complicates the simple binary relationship between artists and craftsmen, carpenters and conceptual artists.
The “Mountains” brings together a group of small concrete hills. Artists focus on the symbiotic relationship between organic and synthetic materials, while in this work, concrete, a typical urban material, is made into hills that show the morphological features of the sand, water, and gravel that make up the mountain.
The "Wave" transformed from the continuous aerial photographs of the beach into a fascinating digital double-painting. These abstract, aesthetic and natural images contrast and resonate with the visible LCD (liquid crystal display), and seem to the incredible unity of the two fluidities.
In general, artists and their works require viewers to rethink about nature instead of ignoring it. They should imagine a new kind of ecology in which people and nature are closely related, being influenced each other, and entangled together.
These are some of the art works in the exhibition.