WHEN ART SOWS HOPE By Director Ferruccio Gard
Will Beauty be able to save this world tormented by the horrors of war and threatened by climate change? Please, don’t make me laugh. It is justified, even dutiful, though, not to give up. Art may help and strike the heart and mind (of whom has got a mind) – that is the message of artist-philosopher Cen Long, to whom Crux Art Foundation devoted an exhibition by the name “Sowing Hope”, moved to Venice after the success in the prestigious Arts Academy of Drawing in Florence whose chairperson is the authoritative art historian Cristina Acidini who attended the presentation in Venice. Because of its philosophical implications, Cen Long is the most prestigious artist in China, according to intellectuals and peers. Curated by Metra Lin and Laura Villani and open until 24th November at Palazzo Querini, Calle Lunga San Barnaba 2691, the exhibition invites deep thoughts. With more than one hundred large-scale paintings, Cen Long hopes, shouts and invokes with strong and rigorous brushstrokes a different world that - as Laura Villani points out – would eventually rest its foundations on the concept of humanity, peace, and kindness among people all over the planet, with no more borders and conflicts. Long’s paintings seek to “recount the human suffering, the misery of life,” expressing disorientation and daze, “but everything with a view on the beauty of creation and life.” “Its mission,” Laura Villani concludes, “is to sow hope in a better future.” That is a decisively poignant exhibition. We hope other artists from the five continents will welcome and spread Cen Long's moving, humane message with their works. Unity is strength, goes a wise proverb. And, why not, even in the art world.... Courage, let us all, artists (and non-artists), sow hope.
