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Ullens Center for Contemporary Art announces Jennifer Wen Ma: Hanging Garden In Ink

The Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing presents Jennifer Wen Ma: Hanging Garden In Ink, an exhibition on view 15 April–27 May 2012.

Jennifer Wen Ma, Petrified Garden, Chinese ink, native Australian plants dimensions, Art Gallery of New South Wales, for Biennale of Sydney, 2010

Specially commissioned for UCCA’s most public exhibition space, Jennifer Wen Ma’s “Hanging Garden in Ink” is a tableau vivant of live plants painted in black Chinese ink. Suspended in the Nave, the piece is scaled at 20 meters long, three meters wide and eight meters high. The bottom and top halves of the garden are mirror images of one another, creating the effect of a reflection on water or a three-dimensional Rorschach blot. While the plants are painted in three-dimensional space, time then acts as the fourth dimension, altering the work over the course of its viewing period. The plants give evidence of the perseverance and resilience of life throughout the exhibition ­period by continuing to grow, showing tender green shoots through the black. In referencing the legendary Hanging Garden of Babylon, Ma’s installation examines the illusion of material wealth and the power of nature and myth, even as it continues her exploration of the contemporary possibilities of China’s most “traditional” medium. The exhibition will be accompanied by a lecture as part of the smart Artist’s Talk series and an interactive children’s workshop on April 22, as well as a special window display in the UCCASTORE

Ullens Center for Contemporary Art
798 Art District, No. 4 Jiuxianqiao Lu
Beijing, China
T +86 10 5780 0200 / 5780 0201
www.ucca.org.cn

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