The Song of the Earth: Caroline Bachmann, Kévin Blinderman, Chen Dandizi, Kasia Fudakowski, Tirdad Hashemi & Soufia Erfanian, Tong Kunniao, Cosima Zu Knyphausen, and Juan Uslé

Hua International is pleased to present The Song of the Earth, featuring works by Caroline Bachmann, Kevin Blinderman, Chen Dandizi, Kasia Fudakowski, Tirdad Hashemi & Soufia Erfanian, Tong Kunniao, Cosima Zu Knyphausen, and Juan Uslé.

“The movements of the stars have become clearer, but to the mass of the people the movements of their masters are still incalculable.” —Bertolt Brecht.

The Song of the Earth takes its inspiration from Gustav Mahler's symphony, composed during a time of profound personal loss and existential crisis. Confronted with the death of his daughter, his own terminal diagnosis, and his dismissal from the Vienna State Opera amidst rising antisemitism, Mahler sought solace in nature and the translated poetry of Tang Dynasty writers. This deeply personal connection between fragility and the eternal rhythms of the natural world forms the foundation of the exhibition. The selected works evoke landscapes—both real and imagined—that serve as sites for reconciliation, renewal, and contemplation amidst personal and collective turmoil.

Caroline Bachmann's Lune reflet gris (2023), a serene portrayal of Lake Geneva, layers memory and observation, offering a reflection on the restorative possibilities of nature. Juan Uslé's Slow Dusk (2023), a near-black monochrome interspersed with vibrant zips of cadmium red and cyan blue, explores a dynamic interplay of absence and presence, rhythm and stillness.

Chen Dandizi's Cutting Branches series (2024) captures the artist's impressions of the collective pruning of plants in southern cities during spring. Dandizi describes her works as a meditation on the paradoxical interplay of control and blessing, human intervention and natural rhythms. Resin-cast branches of a withered rubber tree she nurtured for years are suspended in time, embodying her vision of a "southern notebook" documenting the delicate interconnections between disappearing histories and everyday life.

Cosima Zu Knyphausen's ink-on-paper drawings reimagine the Romantic motif of the open window as a metaphor for longing and introspection. Her homage to Marie-Denise Villers's Young Woman Drawing (1801) transforms this intimate self-portrait into a meta-narrative of the artist's identity, standing on the threshold between personal and historical realms. This lineage evokes Friedrich's Romantic meditations on the interior and exterior, reframing the act of seeing as an existential crossing.

Kasia Fudakowski's sculptural series, It's clear to me now, albeit decidedly too late, that we have not always seen things from the same perspective (2021–ongoing), uses translucent shrimp exoskeletons to address themes of fragility, luxury, and ecological imbalance. Tirdad Hashemi and Soufia Erfanian's collaborative works, including In Your Arm, I'm Blooming (2023), juxtapose scenes of violence and tenderness with the ephemerality of cut flowers, weaving narratives of decay and regeneration.

Tong Kunniao's provocative sculptures—small mountains of breasts spilling milk—offer an abstracted exploration of memory, nourishment, and loss, while Kevin Blinderman's X (2018), featuring inverted outdoor heaters, reflects on human intervention in cold, inhospitable environments, resonating with Mahler's search for warmth and belonging.

The Song of the Earth invites viewers to reconsider the relationship between humanity and the natural world, exploring landscapes as sites of transformation and hope. Like Mahler's symphony, the exhibition is both a personal and universal meditation on grief, renewal and the search for connection in a fragmented world.

“Still is my heart, awaiting its hour. Everywhere, the beloved earth blooms in the spring and is newly green! Everywhere and forever the distances are blue and bright! Forever... forever...” —Gustav Mahler, The Song of the Earth