MADLANDS — WA LIU

MADLANDS
Long Museum (West Bund) staircase gallery
May 11 – July 21, 2024
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“MADLANDS” is the first dual solo museum exhibit at Long Museum by artists Wa Liu and Yang Bao, showcasing their collaborative video work “No One’s Game”, Liu’s new series of paintings, and Bao’s sound sculptures, oil paintings and mixed media works. Inspired by their extensive travel and field research, they delve into the symbiotic relationships of the more-than-human world where diverse sensibilities and lifeways coexist and entangle in a vast ecological network.

Wa Liu's new series of paintings captures the unease amid the climate crisis through a multi-species lens, inspired by their journey in diverse natural and man-made landscapes, such as rainforests, deserts and volcanoes. Her vivid and evocative works intimately capture scenes ranging from the bullwhip kelp wilting under marine heatwaves to the pelicans observing lithium fields, and the descendants of warhorses wandering through abandoned plantations. Grounded in anthropological observation and research, her works boldly combine delicate imageries with immediate brushstrokes, capturing moments of suspense and tension with unsettling clarity. Envisioned as magical gateways, her paintings transport viewers to the sensuous realm of the more-than-human world, where the world-making agendas of different species overlap and reshape each other's existences. Her artworks seek to provoke a paradigm shift—can we transcend our anthropocentric worldview, bounded by human sensibilities and lifespans, to fully understand the multi-dimensional and nonlinear symbiosis among all species.

The exhibit conceptualizes a multi-sensory space that is not solely ours but also shared by birds, insects, trees, oceans, mists and all protagonists intra-acting with us at every moment. Agency is no longer exclusively human; other species, living or non-living things, even paint and sound, are all vibrant and active. We are simultaneously the objects of others' desires and challenges, each endowed with the profound potential to alter another’s path. Here and now, everyone is in focus and everything is in action in Madlands.

狂幻之野
龙美术馆（西岸馆）阶梯展厅
2024年5月11日至7月21日
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“狂幻之野”是艺术家刘娃与鲍杨在龙美术馆的首次美术馆双个展，呈现他们合作的影像作品《无人之局》、刘娃的最新绘画系列、鲍杨的大型声音雕塑、油画及综合材料作品。他们从旅行和田野调查中汲取灵感，探讨万物之间多维度的共生关系。不同的生命线索和生存之道同时存在，冲撞和编织出错综复杂的生态网络。

刘娃的绘画作品灵感源自他们在雨林、沙漠、火山等自然与人造景观中的田野调查，她善于从多物种的视角出发，近距离地捕捉气候危机中的不安与失控感，尤其是不同生命体在人类活动影响下的生存现状，比如在海洋热浪中枯萎的巨型海藻、遥望着锂矿工厂的鹈鹕、在种植园废墟中漫步的战马后裔等。她的绘画根植于人类学式的观察和研究，又饱含离奇的想象和浓烈的情绪，将细腻的画面与快速的笔触大胆结合，敏锐地提炼出充满悬念和张力的瞬间。刘娃将画面视为一个奇幻的入口，将观众从日常生活中抽离出来，身临其境地体会人类感官以外的广阔世界，思考不同物种在创造自己的生存之地的同时，如何改变彼此的命运。她的绘画如同一场超越现实的旅程，旨在提出一种思维的范式转换，探问我们能否抛开以人类感知为维度、以人类寿命为尺度的线性世界观，去体验万物之间多维度、非线性的共生关系。

本展览构想了一个充满想象的多感官空间，不仅属于我们，更属于鸟、虫、树木、海洋、雾气等所有时刻与我们息息相关的主角。能动性不再是人类的特权，不同物种、生物或非生物，甚至颜料和声音都具有活性和力量。我们也是他者欲望和抗争的对象，谁都一样有可能彻底改变对方的轨迹。此地此刻，众生皆是焦点，万物皆在行动中，为狂幻之野。