“China Institute Gallery will present a special spring exhibition, Shan Shui Reboot: Re-Envisioning Landscape for a Changing World, on view from March 7 through July 7, 2024. The exhibition highlights a new generation of artists in China and the United States who are reinterpreting traditional Chinese landscape painting in the context of today’s global social issues and climate crisis. Shan shui refers to the painting of natural landscapes with brush and ink focused on an awareness of inner spiritual philosophy. 

Shan Shui Reboot: Re-Envisioning Landscape for a Changing World features the recent work of seven established and emerging artists born between 1974-1992, including Lam Tung Pang, Yi Xin Tong, Kelly Wang, Peng Wei, Fu Xiaotong, Yang Yongliang, and Ni Youyu. More than 40 works will be exhibited, and many will be shown in New York for the first time.” — China Institute 

As guest curator Tiffany Wai-Ying Beres asks, “How do young artists use the ancient language of Chinese landscape painting (shan shui) to reflect on and respond to change in our contemporary world? In an era when humans have a direct impact on the Earth’s climate and leaving distinctive marks on the geological record, possibly even to the point of extinction, these artists adopt the Chinese tradition of shan shui to conjure metaphoric, rather than purely descriptive representations of nature—visions that address contemporary life and society.”

Images courtesy China Institute Gallery.