Before science took shape, or before humanity emerged, trees had already long ago begun their own story. Trees have never been our resource. They have a much longer and far-reaching experience and potential. We must understand this if we are to depart from our anthropocentric perspective in viewing plants. Li Ji piovides us with a different kind of gaze, an enchanting world where all things possess a spirit, the world of the knowledge, emotions and secrets harbored by trees.

Installation View at “Li Ji: The Trees”, CGK, Kunming, 2021

It was about eleven years ago, on the Terai Grasslands in Nepal, that Li Ji shot his first photographs of trees. Since then, he has traveled all over the tropics and subtropics of Asia, from India’s Deccan Plateau to Thailand’s Kaeng Krachan Rainforest, Sri Lanka’s Yala Forest, and the Tibetan Plateau in China. There,Li Ji’s Iens began to revolve around the trees, photographing every part of the tree according to its shape,These giant trees went from object to subject,and the center of the story shifted in turn.

Installation View at “Li Ji: The Trees”, CGK, Kunming, 2021

In Li Ji’s works, trees are worthy of reverence.They possess emotions, memories and the ability to communicate, and so, in the exhibition space we have an enchanting party of trees. In the first dance of the trees, trees are the wisdom of the people, providing us with a variety of different paths, life continuing in ways beyond our imagination. In the second chapter, trees become an ancient memory, just how in every hometown and novel, there is always a giant tree a witness to the rise and fall of generations villages,and civilizations. In the final section of the exhibition, trees in memory, trees in science and trees in aesthetics blur together, forming a disordered yet poetic coda.

This is kind of reverence we would have waking up one morning, naked. in the dense mists of the rainforest.

Installation View at “Li Ji: The Trees”, CGK, Kunming, 2021

About the Artist

Li Ji: Born in Kunming, Yunnan in 1963, he graduated from the Department of Printmaking at Sichuan Fine Arts Institute in 1987 and is currently a professor at Yunnan Arts University.

From the 1990s to 2009, he has been engaged in the creation of contemporary art paintings and photography. His works have been exhibited in Chinese contemporary art shows held in Europe, America and many other countries around the world, and have also been featured in art fairs in Miami (USA), Madrid (Spain), Paris (France), Moscow (Russia) and other cities. He has also held solo exhibitions in Essen (Germany), as well as Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Chengdu and other cities in China.

His works are included in the collections of many public institutions such as the Fraissiras Museum of Contemporary Art in Athens, Greece; The Red Mansion Art Foundation and David Roberts Art Foundation in the UK; The China Club in Hong Kong; Shenzhen Art Museum; Nanjing Sifang Art Museum; and Cheng Xindong International Contemporary Art Space.

Since 2010, Li Ji has made multiple trips every year to national parks and wildlife reserves in Nepal, India, Sri Lanka and Thailand, as well as nature reserves in China including the Qiangtang Grassland and Tanggula Mountains in Tibet, Hoh Xil in Qinghai, Qinling Mountains in Shaanxi, Gaoligong Mountains, Xishuangbanna and Baima Snow Mountain in Yunnan. Through his lens, he has created a large number of images focusing on Asian wildlife, while also paying attention to and documenting the increasingly severe conflicts and crises between humans and wildlife in the present day.

He has published nearly ten personal monographs since 2006. Among them, the art volume Wilderness Documentary – Asian Wildlife was co-published by Beijing United Publishing Co., Ltd. and Artron Art Center in 2017.

About the Curator

Cui Cancan, Curator and Writer.

Since 2012, Cui Cancan has curated over 180 major exhibitions and events. Representative group exhibitions include The Methodology of the New Generation (The Wind H Art Center, Beijing, 2021), Nine-Tiered Pagoda: Spatial and Visual Magic (Pingshan Art Museum,  Beijing, 2020), The Curation Workshop (OCT Art & Design Museum, Shenzhen, 2019/2020), the Chinese New Year Special Project Series (2015-2019), The Decameron (Caochangdi, Beijing, 2016), Between the 5th and 6th Ring Road in Beijing (Owspace, Beijing, 2015), Unlived by What is Seen (Galleria Continua, Pace Beijing, and Tang Contemporary Art Center, Beijing, 2014), Country Style Haircut (Yuan Art Museum, Beijing, 2013), Heiqiao Night Away (Heiqiao Village, Beijing, 2013), Chengdu Biennale, Southeast Asia Art Triennial, Changjiang International Photography and Video Biennale, and nearly 100 solo exhibitions and retrospectives for individual artists.

Awards and honors include the Best Exhibition Award at Beijing Gallery Weekend (2018), The Art Newspaper Asia Art Contribution Award – Lincoln Curator Nomination (2015), the AAC Art China Annual Curator Nomination (2013), the YISHU Award for Contemporary Chinese Art Criticism (2013), and CCAA Special Award for Contemporary Art Criticism (2013).