The Garden of Winter Light intends to create a space for loitering in leisure that is authentic to this moment. The fact that this 'garden' is coming into being in a contemporary art gallery, means an inevitable cacophony of contemporary sensibilities: while some of the art celebrates the link to nature, much of it is about the incursion of contemporary culture into the way we view the urban world around us. The city is the 'natural' outdoors for most of us who make little effort to go into the hills. In this space one moves through time, encountering moments of artistic creation spanning decades and diverse geographies, from early 1990s Taiwan to present-day Hong Kong, Mongolia, Ghana and elsewhere. This eclecticism is part of the unfolding of small journeys within this space. One of the essential things that connects the works is a concern with that interface between culture and nature which so captivated traditional literati aesthetics. The metaphor of the garden intends also to prompt the observation that culture itself too becomes natural—when it grows and adapts and transforms without losing its source-root.
About the exhibition
Dates: 10 January–15 March 2019
Venue: Hanart TZ Gallery
Courtesy of the artists and Hanart TZ Gallery, for further information please visit www.hanart.com.