Spring time and therefore doing some spring cleaning of my hard drive (simply so that I can use it). In process I
stumbled across this painting by Yan Li:
I think the painting captures well the phantasmagorical quality of night in Chinese cities, when darkness does one the favor of eliminating all the jagged edges and rebar of rapid construction, leaving behind only light and shadows of not only what is already realized, but moreover what’s fanaticized to come (this effect usually enhanced by the atmospheric effect of smog). Yan Li’s painting of the Shanghai Bund captures this very well, replete with loving couple, and historical juxtaposition of turn of then century buildings dwarfed by turn of the (next) century buildings.
And then, further along in my “locate and destroy” trip through the hard drive I came upon this image taken by me at Denver Art Museum on occasion of Zhong Biao’s 2009 exhibition EMBRACE.
I thought it might be good companion piece to Yan’s painting.