ZHU Yu proposes a concept of “socialist landscape” to problematize the dominant notion of “landscape” through Chinese socialist discourse and practice. If “landscape” was a symptom of hegemonic modernity, an alternative modernity could be discerned in the practice of “new shanshui painting”(新山水画) in the 1950s and 1960s, by which the formation of “socialist landscape” became visible. This historical practice could be considered as a self-revealing scene of complex transformation, which reflected the contradictions of cultural practice in socialist China.
The talk is followed by a conversation with visual culture and media scholar ZHOU Chenshu.
In Chinese with English interpretation.
In conjunction with Goldenrod, an exhibition by ZHENG Bo.
Goldenrod and its related events are presented as the first season of The (Invisible) Garden, a two-year artistic research program that inquires into the garden as a method that shapes our understanding of Nature and our relationships to other species. For four seasons, from Fall 2019 through Spring 2021, the ICA at NYU Shanghai will present artists, thinkers, and practitioners, through exhibitions, events, and a publication, to consider the garden and ask how might we denature Nature?
