Almine Rech Shanghai is pleased to present Li Qing’s second solo show at the gallery on view from November 4 to December 3, 2022.
The view-finding function of the window frame is affirmed not only by occidental painting theories, but also by oriental architecture. The view from a window has been a typical model of the Western gaze ever since Alberti introduced linear perspective[1] to the world in the 15th century. Moving along in art history, painting scenery reproduced and restricted by the window shows its contrast with the fluid landscape in Shan Shui (Chinese landscape painting). Li Qing's painting on windows certainly refers to this part of history, but it also embodies ideas within garden and landscape design. Instead of comparing paintings to windows, classical garden designers used windows as viewfinders for spatial composition, as threads to interweave the scenery of four seasons to create an ever-changing field. Painting on window frames triggered an encounter of these two worlds, questioning a relation of power that has dominated viewers for a long time, thus privileging the other landscape.
— Jenny CHEN Jiaying, writer and curator
[1] Leon Battista Alberti, Della pittura (On Painting) (1435-6).