ABOUT THE EVENT: Since the mid-1990s, Cherney has used photography as his primary medium, traversing China's mountains, rivers, historic sites, and cities. His work contemplates landscapes in a perpetual state of appearance, disappearance, and rebirth through time. For Cherney, photography is both an acute capture of an instant and an extended meditation on the relationship between perception and temporality.

The show draws on Cherney's two-decade practice, presenting over twenty of his key works. It centers on his "Yangtze River" Series (2010-2015), comprising 42 photographic handscrolls from along the river's course. For this project, Cherney took the anonymous Song Dynasty handscroll of the same name in the Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., as a primary reference. Using positions on the ancient painting as points of departure, he used satellite maps and coordinates to plan his shoots and journey. The series traverses the Yangtze's vast geography from its source to the sea, capturing rushing gorges, ancient cities and grottoes layered with history, as well as landscapes transformed by industrialization and urbanization.

"Michael Cherney: Middle Distance" is open to the public until April 12.

MORE ABOUT THE ARTIST: Michael Cherney (b. 1969, New York) received his undergraduate degree in Chinese language and history at the State University of New York at Binghamton and arrived in Beijing for graduate language study at Beijing Language and Culture University in 1991. More than three decades later, he continues to reside in Beijing and travels extensively across China. His major solo exhibitions include: "The Heart-Mind Learns from the Eyes" (Three Shadows Photography Art Center / +3 Gallery, Beijing, 2018); "Among Stone and Mist: Chinese Landscape Photography by Michael Cherney" (The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, 2014); "Reframing" (798 Photo Gallery, Beijing, 2006). His works have been included in the permanent collections of numerous institutions, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Art Institute of Chicago, Cleveland Museum of Art, Getty Research Institute, Harvard University Art Museums, Hong Kong University Museum and Art Gallery, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Princeton University Art Museum, Yale University Art Gallery, among others. In addition, he has lectured at various institutions, including Northwestern University, the Seattle Art Museum, National Taiwan Normal University, the University of Toronto, UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, and the Central Academy of Fine Arts, among others.