Liang Ban - Landscape Browser, curated by Bao Dong

LIANG BAN 梁 半 De sarthe gallery

LIANG BAN 梁 半 LANDSCAPE BROWSER 風 景 瀏 覽 器 CURATED BY BAO DONG 由 鮑 棟 策 展

北 京 德 薩 畫 廊 De sarthe gallery - Beijing

Looking back upon the history of western culture, we find that starting with romanticism landscape became recognized as an independent subject matter in its own right. As landscape was reckoned as “pure nature,” landscape painters were hailed as the “eye of purity and innocence.” Due to its dominant role in the visual narration of history in the 19th century, landscape painting became one of the driving forces behind the revolution of modern art. However, it is worth pointing out that other than the delineation of the nature, landscape is often laden with social significances. The depiction and even photographing of landscape and the transmission of these images have come to be intricately related to politics. Landscape is an integral part of the internal construction of modern nations and the aesthetic ideology of urban bourgeoisie, as well as the projection of western centralism. In this regard, so-called “pure and natural” landscape does not actually exist.

In essence, “Landscape” is merely an object produced via seeing.

Within the exhibition, a billboard featuring Mount Rushmore, a topographic map covered with graffiti, a blackbased painting dappled with stars, a cave from which Coca-Cola cans are tossed out, and the various landscape pictures used as screensavers on mobile phones all offer an experience of landscape that is anything but pure, and even absent of the standard experience associated with the subject. In this exhibition, Liang Ban manages to separate “seeing” from “landscape.” On the one hand, he endeavors to present “landscape” as cultural object (political logo, technical sign, cultural product and media content) rather than a natural object; and on the other hand, by detaching the images of landscape from the social systems they usually belong to, he changes “landscape” into a symbol and allows it once again to become an object produced via seeing. In an era when the most immediate response people have when they encounter the beauty of nature is to take out their smartphones, we no longer even “see,” we simply “browse.”

- Bao Dong

Evening Rambles 2016 Aluminium structure, UV Flatbed Print on wood board and specimen Parrot 394 x 685 x 11 cm dimensions variable

Sunset - Sunrise 2016 Single channel video, 0’15”

Sunset - Sunrise 2016 Single channel video, 0’15” 40 x 21 x 24 cm Installation view

The Earth Magician No. 1 2016 Topological map, phosphoresent spray-painting 137 x 206 cm

The Earth Magician No. 2 2016 Topological map, phosphoresent spray-painting 92 x 71 cm

The Earth Magician No. 3 2016 Topological map, phosphoresent spray-painting 67 x 80 cm

Stars 2016, Tri channel video, 03’00” 184 x 400 cm

Stars 2016 Acrylic and spray-paint on canvas 180 x 400 cm

Hole 2016 Single channel video 00’58”

Trip To The Moon - Memorial 2015 Single channel video 0’17”

Die for The Love of Wreck Beach 2015 Single channel video 0’10”

Friend Feed Rapids 2016 Single channel video 0’14”

We Won’t Sleep Tonight in order to be Lucky Guys for Each Other 2015 Single channel video 0’40”

FUCK 2015 Single channel video 0’41”

Hand of God 2015 Single channel video 0’41”

Holly Friday 2015 Single channel video 0’18”

Minor Concussion 2016 Single channel video 0’15”

Thalassobla 2015 Single channel video 0’30”

The Voice Of New York 2016 Single channel video 0’44”

Virtual Reality 2016 Single channel video 0’27”

BIOGRAPHY

LIANG BAN 1985 Born in Guangxi, China

EDUCATION 2010 B.F.A. Guangxi Art Institute, Sculpture Department, Nanning, China

SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2016 Landscape Browser curated by Bao Dong, de Sarthe Gallery, Beijing, China Slightly Confused, Taikang Space, Beijing, China 2014 Game, A-4 Contemporary Arts Center, Chengdu, China

GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2016 Position Fixing, Arte Place at the Guangzhou Opera House, Guangzhou, China In the Dimensionality, Between Art Lab, Shanghai, China Pixel Park – Contemporary Video Art Exhibition, Shanghai Jing An Sculpture Park, Shanghai, China The Image Expression in the Art Practice of the New Generation, Xi’an Museum, Xi’an, China Turning Point: Contemporary Art in China Since 2000, Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai, China Ghost in Flash, Taikang Space, Beijing China GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL, Goethe Institut, Beijing, China

2015 Live At, Intelligentsia Gllery, Beijing, China Figure – Image – Drawing and Subject, Tsinghua University Art Museum, Beijing, China Olhares Interiores, Macao Museum of Art, Macao Elixir of Life, Mastio della Cittadella, Turin, Italy 2014 Polyphony II – Ecological Survey of Chinese Art – Beijing, Art Museum of Nanjing University of the Arts, Nanjing, China Wu Qing, Gland; Tou Ming Gong Fang; We Wanted to Have a Space so There Will be a Space, Beijing, China A Room Not of One’s Own, Space Station, Beijing, China 2013 Individual Growth – The Momentum of Contemporary Art, Shijiazhuang Art Museum, Shijiazhuang, China Contemporary Art and Process of the Society, Circle Art Center, Shenzhen, China 2012 @me, Hong Kong Contemporary Art Museum, Beijing, China Living . Being, Songzhuang Art Museum, Beijing, China 2011 Not Only a Taoist Troublemaker!, Zajia Lab, Beijing, China 2010 Line 1, Beijing Subway Line 1, Beijing, China

Published on the occasion of de Sarthe Gallery - Beijing exhibition:

LIANG BAN - LANDSCAPE BROWSER CURATED BY BAO DONG

December 9, 2016 - February 26, 2017

de sarthe Gallery Beijing 北京市朝陽區草場地藝術區328-d 328-d, Caochangdi, Chaoyang District, 100015 Beijing, China T. +86 10-84182441 | E. beijing@desarthe.com www.desarthe.com Catalog: © 2016 de Sarthe Gallery - Beijing © Liang Ban Text © Bao Dong Design: Willis Lam, de Sarthe Gallery

北 京 德 薩 畫 廊 De sarthe gallery - Beijing