on 16 Mar 2023
Sanlorenzo Asia, represented by Simpson Marine, is presenting work by Chinese artist Li Qing
Sanlorenzo returns to Art Basel Hong Kong, which takes place from 21 to 25 March 2023.
During the five-day show — the Asian edition of the leading modern and contemporary international art fair — Sanlorenzo says it will present an ‘unprecedented’ work by artist Li Qing entitled Landscape with Lighthouses. Curated by Flash Art, the work was made possible thanks to the support of the Almine Rech Gallery, Paris London.
Sanlorenzo says Li Qing has ‘created a completely original work that reflects the relationship between humanity and nature.’ The Italian luxury boat builder says the connection between Sanlorenzo and Li Qing ‘brings a new light on the seascape and the world of navigation, through the study and the different perspectives of the lighthouse form.’
Landscape with Lighthouses is a unique work created using a window salvaged from an old building, which serves to support the entire structure of the painting. Geometrical panels in the shape of a pinwheel are superimposed on a reproduction of the harbour; the different aesthetics of architecture and the sea, order and landscape, are delineated through the grid of the window. The lighthouse depicted in the centre of the work recalls the entrance to Victoria Harbour in Hong Kong, interpreted with a modernist aesthetic. The font of this modelling indicates the relationship between man’s industrial rationality and nature: the lighthouse, standing between the two, becomes a unit of measurement for evaluating and dividing two worlds, but is at the same time a symbol of surveillance and of travelling from one place to another.
The entire layout of the lounge emphasises a geometric sensibility. The macro-spatial perceptions of the city and nature constantly communicate the work. In the conflict and reverberation between artifice and nature, the beauty of colour and structure leads us to an unknown utopia. Dual worlds intertwine: futuristic, utopian, vertiginous architecture is traced by the geometry of the wooden structures, defined by the human brain.
Landscape with Lighthouses
Li Qing‘s work is part of the study initiated by Sanlorenzo through the arts and projected into the future. This ongoing enquiry has led the shipyard to create Sanlorenzo Arts, an interactive collection of works and projects spanning the most important themes of everyday life: sustainability, the environment, technology, nature, the sea and, above all, mankind, are addressed in original and resourceful ways, thanks to the sensitivity of artists, designers, architects and creative people.
Sanlorenzo, represented in Asia by Simpson Marine, says it thus navigates the horizons of the present using the imagination, discovering new territories and new oceans thanks to the nautical charts provided by art and contemporaneity.
Li Qing was born in Huzhou, Zhejiang Province in 1981. He lives and works in Hangzhou and Shanghai. His paintings, installations and video works seek rational fractures in similarity and contradiction, acting on the viewer’s perception and recognition through tortuous and overlapping structures. In recent years, his works have traced the historical fragmentation and ideological conflicts that occur widely in the dissemination of information, collective memory and knowledge experiences. At the same time, his works test the tension and contradiction between image-language, symbol and social space, connecting the multi-layered elements of experience in series to construct a conflicting structure. Capturing micropolitics in everyday spaces and images, questioning political identity in the aesthetic tradition, and observing the identity of Chinese art in the context of global art, reflect his historical consciousness among the young generation of Chinese artists. Li Qing graduated from the Oil Painting Department of the China Academy of Art in 2007.
Some of his solo exhibitions: Rongzhai of Fondazione Prada, Shanghai, China; Pingshan Art Museum, Shenzhen, China; Zhejiang Art Museum, Hangzhou, China; Centro d’Arte Tomás y Valiente (CEART), Madrid, Spain; Museo Arario, Seoul, Korea; Oriente Foundation, Macao, China; Goethe Institute, Shanghai, China; among others.
Sanlorenzo Arts is a platform dedicated to navigating the complexity of the present through creativity and innovation. It is an active and interactive channel for projects that address the most topical issues in the most original ways, thanks to the sensitivity of artists, designers, thinkers and creatives. Sanlorenzo Arts has embarked on a voyage of continuous encounters and discoveries, which encourages the construction of meaning and value, to set sail for new latitudes. Sanlorenzo has created a stable instrument of investigation that offers new points of view, exploring themes such as sustainability, the environment, research, technology, nature and above all the human being, all through the eyes, poetry and wonder of the arts.
Sanlorenzo is hosting an exclusive ‘meet the artist’ event at the Sanlorenzo’s Lounge, featuring a Champagne aperitif with Li Qing on Wednesday 22nd March 2023 at 4.00 pm
RSVP: sanlorenzo@simpsonmarine.com, +852 9191 6315