Miami Dade College’s Hialeah Campus Gallery Presents The Modern Utopia: Lu Chengxiang

Miami, May 5, 2015Miami Dade College’s (MDC) Galleries of Art + Design and Art Lexing present The Modern Utopia: Lu Chengxiang, opening at noon Wednesday, May 20, at the Hialeah Campus gallery. The opening reception and exhibition are free and open to the public.

The Modern Utopia exhibition is part of the inaugural program at the new Hialeah gallery, sponsored by a Knight Foundation Challenge Grant. The exhibition is curated by Lexing Zhang, a gallerist and expert in the field of Chinese contemporary art.Chengxiang’s ink paintings subtly introduce the restlessness of modernity into traditionally-inspired scenarios. These encapsulated fantasies, collectively called The Modern Utopia, are Chengxiang’s own portals between time periods and aesthetic methodologies. Each circular painting is a strange gateway for the contemporary observer, where the final destination is a benevolent one, but not fully known or understood. Symbols of prosperity, luck, wisdom, and immortality flow freely through these delicate rounds, but Chengxiang’s fantastic situations provide only short lapses of escape. His quotidian figures and present-day limousines, backpacks, and school uniforms are sharp reminders that the fantasy cannot be maintained as long as the mythologies they call upon.

Chengxiang was born in Jiangxi, China in 1974. He graduated from the South Jiangxi Fine Art Academy and has been featured in group exhibitions in Shanghai, Beijing, Taipei, Los Angeles, and Southampton (New York). He was nominated as an Artist to Watch in 2007 at the Beijing BS1 Contemporary Art Museum and was featured in the Young Art Taipei art show in Taipei, Taiwan in 2013. Chengxiang lives and works in Shanghai.

The Hialeah Campus gallery is a component of the new Hialeah Arts and Cultural Programming, which was established with the fundraising support of the Knight Arts Challenge Grant. The Center will celebrate and preserve the arts and culture of Hialeah by bringing together local artists and the community through events and exhibitions.

“The Modern Utopia exhibit and the additional cultural events at the Campus are a magnificent way to bring Asian culture to the Hialeah community and to be able to share and celebrate many beautiful diverse cultures”, said Hialeah Campus President Dr. Mattie Roig-Watnik.

Additional events, sponsored by MDC’s Confucius Institute throughout the exhibition, will be announced.

MDC Galleries of Art + Design and Hialeah Campus Present The Modern Utopia: Lu Chengxiang

  • WHEN: Wednesday, May 20, 12:00 PM – Friday, Aug. 28, 5:00 PM
  • WHERE: MDC Hialeah Campus 1780 W. 49th St.