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A special installation of a new work by visual artist Tang Qingnian 唐慶年 features full-size prints of five monumental banner paintings, the largest of them 18 feet in length, suspended from a bamboo framework above the water of the Chinese Garden lake. Two years in the making, Tang's series of ink paintings memorializes the devastating wildfires that ravaged California in 2017 and 2018. In addition to the banner paintings, which have been printed on weatherproof material for outdoor display, a small selection of original handscrolls and albums by the artist will be on view inside the adjacent Waveless Boat Pavilion.
Tang is the 2019 Cheng Family Foundation Artist-in-Residence at The Huntington. During his year-long residency, Tang is also creating an original video artwork—a "moving ink painting," as he describes it—inspired by the four seasons in the Chinese Garden. The work will be screened as the culmination of his residency in spring 2020, during The Huntington's Centennial Celebration.