Polar bear From the series: Iglooik / uit de serie: Iglooik, Canada, 2007 Courtesy Michael Hoppen, London / Londen Courtesy Vous Etes Ici, Amsterdam © Scarlett Hooft Graafland

It is on a rare occasion that I attend an exhibition and struggle to walk away from what is hanging on the walls, even with the allure of many excellent pubs outside. Scarlett Hooft Graafland’s Soft Horizons at the beautiful location of the Museum Huis Voor Fotografie Marseille in Amsterdam, stopped me in my tracks with a rich array of majestic landscapes and quirky installations, all captured in flawless photographs that have an underlining delicate humor. Creating the perfect recipe for an exhibition that is without doubt worthy of a visit.

Graaflands photography navigates the viewer through a wide array of places: in China, Bolivia, Northern Canada and Iceland. Each location capturing notions of reflection, peace and sincerity.  Even when the places are poles apart, Graffland teases out commonalities, exploring the effects of changing modern landscapes against the cultural and social traditions of the native inhabitants.

From the series: China / uit de serie: China, China, 2006 Courtesy Vous Etes Ici, Amsterdam Courtesy Michael Hoppen, London / Londen © Scarlett Hooft Graafland

The exhibition title Soft Horizons evokes ideas of ephemeral terrain that could just as easily be water, ice, salt, air, or even a mirage. The ethereal compositions all quietly express their malleable beauty, perfectly captured by Graafland. The installations are so well placed into the landscape that nature seems to become the artist, subtly highlighting its unique characteristics by using ordinary, everyday material: balloons, candy, rope, fishing line, spice, and lemonade. Animals and people, both real and unreal, are often seen participating in these images. Her understated props do not alter the landscape in any permanent way, and do nothing at all to detract from the impact of the powerful scenery. Without confusion, Graafland cleverly communicates a lighter playful side to her works, by expressing more human, ‘down to earth’ qualities when combining performance, installation and a camera.

Sweating Sweethearts 2 From the series: Salt Works / uit de serie: Salt Works, Bolivia, 2004 Courtesy Vous Etes Ici, Amsterdam Courtesy Michael Hoppen, London / Londen © Scarlett Hooft Graafland

In my view, the series of works created in the Bolivian salt flats, best express Graaflands strengths in creating something alluring out of a vast emptiness. She plays with this lifeless land, incorporating the Bolivia women, local foods, and machinery. Together they express a charming humor and limitless possibilities in this harsh and difficult climate. Displayed alongside Graaflands photographs was the only true installation in Soft Horizons. A carpet comprised of spices bought in a local Bolivian market, created a patchwork of color that penetrated through what would have otherwise been a never ending sea of blue and white.

Carpet Bolivia 2010 Courtesy Vous Etes Ici, Amsterdam Courtesy Michael Hoppen, London / Londen © Scarlett Hooft Graafland

In the end, the gallery closed, and I  had walk away from Bolivia, China, Iceland and Northern Canada. But now with the haunting images of Soft Horizons etched deeply into my mind, I can smile at the glorious composition while sipping my beer in the dark old pub around the corner.

Liu Bolin, Hiding in the City No. 93 – Supermarket No. 2, 2010. Photo courtesy of Eli Klein Fine Art

Beijing-based artist Liu Bolin is the master of blending in with the world around him — no matter what the environment. Which is ironic, considering as he explained to The Daily Mail last year, “The inspiration behind my work was a sense of not fitting in to modern society and was a silent protest against the persecution of artists… My work is a kind of reminder, to remind people what the community we live in really looks like, and what kind of problems exist.”

In The Invisible Man, his third solo show at Eli Klein Fine Art, Liu’s self-camouflage skills are prominently displayed in a series of large-scale photographs — snapped both in his home country and during a recent trip to Italy — which take up to 10 hours each to complete. The artist has also spent the past month working on a new series, Hiding in New York, which will make its official debut later this year. Click through to preview a few images of Liu Bolin disappearing around NYC, as well as some of our favorite pieces from the show up at Eli Klein through August 28th.

Zeng Fanzhi, Untitled (Hospital Series), 1994, Oil on canvas, 179.1 x 199.4 cm

The listlessness of people waiting in an emergency waiting room contrasts discomfortingly with the gruesomeness of the chunks of human flesh appearing as fresh meat and liberal washes of red. This work is from one of Zeng Fanzhi’s earliest series, known as the “Hospital” series, markedly influenced by German Expressionism and its manifestation of society’s anxieties and decadence, as studied during his formative years at the Hubei Institute of Fine Arts in China. Zeng lived next to the hospital and would recall in his early paintings, scenes of doctors and fearful patients in emergency rooms, and the proximity between humans and flesh to underscore human frailty. The white-suited doctor in the foreground, appearing to be blind to the pain of a patient beside him, was characteristic of the critique of institutions and society present in Chinese contemporary art of the 80s and 90s.

Zeng Fanzhi, Night, 2005, Oil on canvas

From the early 2000s, Zeng began shifting away from rough and large strokes, as he played with a technique of spontaneous brushstrokes, sometimes painting with two hands, using two or four brushes in an attempt to release control. He took inspiration from Song dynasty art, particularly the ways landscape paintings emphasized humankind’s insignificance to the universe. The “Night” series comprises his paintings of landscapes, sometimes with or without figures. In Night (2005), a lone woman appears to be on a continuous journey, to an elusive destination. For Zeng, these landscapes are not real, but a consciousness of the world and a representation of a restless journey of discovery.

Zeng Fanzhi, Hyena, 2010, Oil on canvas, 250 x 350cm, image from Rockbund Art Museum

An exhibition of Zeng’s recent works is currently on show from 12 August to 12 October 2010, at 2010 Zeng Fanzhi at the Rockbund Art Museum in Shanghai. His “Night” series have evolved to the “Jungles” series, of which Hyena is a part of, and his recent works introduce a keen awareness of nature and animals. The carcass in Hyena is reminiscent of the flesh in his “Hospital” series, connecting Zeng’s perspective of man and animals. Due to an injury, Zeng had to paint with his left hand, resulting in unruly strokes which contribute to a sense of the wild, destructive, yet arrestingly beautiful state of nature.

Foreground: Mammoth's Tusks, 2010, Wood, 340 x 160 x 130cm; Background: Covered Unidentified Object, 2010, Golden Silk Nanmu, 266 x 100 x 49cm, Image from Rockbund Art Museum

This exhibition also marks his venture into sculptural works. While significantly different through the abstract forms, the distinctive introspection in Zeng’s works remain. The sheer physicality of Mammoth’s Tusks weighted into space makes obvious the absence of a body and Covered Unidentified Object presents a creature beneath a cloak, on a coffin-like structure. In unison, the sculptures bring into the present what had been made extinct and forgotten. Using lacquering techniques, Mammoth’s Tusks were painted, polished when the paint dried, and this act was repeated numerous times, enabling a meditative process for Zeng.

Born in 1964 in Wuhan, China, Zeng participated in the Guangzhou Triennial (2009) and Venice Biennale (2009). A winner of the Martell Artist of the Year 2009, recent solo exhibitions were held at Singapore Art Museum, National Gallery for Foreign Art in Bulgaria and the Museum of Modern Art of Saint-Etienne Métropole.

Private Life by Li Dian

The Fifth Dimension – Art of Fiber and Space (October 18 – December 4, 2009) at MOCA Shanghai presented the works of 24 teachers and students of the Fiber and Space Art Studio from the Fifth Studio of the Sculpture Department of China Academy of Arts.

Titled to convey the interests of the Fiber and Space Art Studio in examining the world from a fifth dimension, the exhibition presents reconstructured realities from a virtual dimension imagined by the artists. Tracing the sensibilities and evolution of contemporary art practice by Chinese artists working with fibrous materials since the 1980s, the exhibition unveils the shifts in uses of and perspectives on aesthetic expression which integrates fiber with painting, sculpture and installation.

During the 1980s, members of the Fiber and Space Art Studio, such as Shi Hui, participating artist and one of the exhibition’s three curators, experimented with structures and space through materials such as bamboo and paper, in addition to the traditional materials of wool, linen and cotton.

Today’s experimentation takes the form of incorporating materials such as plastic, polyurethane and other industrial materials to create soft sculptures which reflect also, on the fast-changing Chinese society and the impact of consumerism on people’s daily lives. In his work, Nightmare, Zhan Jun uses iron and aluminium wires to fabricate an exhaust pipe forming the trunk of a bare and forlorn tree with extended roots of metal, to express his reflections on the relationship between industrialization and the environment.

Nightmare by Zhan Jun

The exhibition pays tribute to the vision and work of Professor Maryn Varbanov (1932-1989), a Bulgarian artist who started the Varbanov Tapestry Research Center in the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts in 1986, the first contemporary fiber art research center in China, which later led to the founding of the Fiber and Space Art Studio.

Participating artists: Shi Hui, Shan Zeng, Huang Yan, Liang Shaoji, Chen Wei, Fu Yan, He Shanshan, Huang Zhe, Li Dian, Li Wei, Lin Changwen, Lin Jia, Song Chunyang, Wang Hei, Wang Jinglei, Wang Zhenghong, Wang Zhijian, Wu Jiazhen, Xu  Jia, Ying Nihui, Ying Xinxun, Zhan Jun, Zhang Hui, and Zhou Hui.

Through the medium of ceramics artist Kim Simonsson questions the role of the child and nature in the modern world. Often referencing Manga cartoon imagery, children and sometimes animals are presented in Simonsson’s work to challenge tradition, cultural habits and beliefs for both the East and West. These traditions are also challenged through the artist’s choice of material. Simonsson uses ceramics to draw a parallel with decorative China figurines and traditional ceramic craft of the West, updating both by saturating them in elements of pop-culture. Simonsson graduated from the University of Arts and Design, Helsinki, Finland (2000). Recent solo exhibitions in Finland include Galleria Huoltamo, Tempere, and Arabia Gallery Helsinki. The artist is also represented by Nancy Margolis Gallery, NYC, and has received project funding from the Stina Krook Foundation and the Svenska Kulturefonden.

Internationally renowned British sculptor Antony Gormley is currently exhibiting his “Critical Mass” installation with the Museo d’Arte Donna Regina in Naples, Italy. In this work, the artist cast more than 60 figures in a variety of poses and then placed the casts in a large group on the gallery floor. Gormley’s work investigates the body and makes reference to internal and external space. The artist lives and works in London and is currently represented by White Cube Gallery. Gormley has had countless exhibitions, including work in the Sydney Biennale (2006), Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead, England (2003), and the National History Museum in Beijing, China (2003). Antony Gormley is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects and has been a Royal Academician since 2003. He also has a full artist book with Phaidon Press.