Singer-turned-artist Ai Jing will hold a solo exhibition at the Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana Museum in Milan starting from June 5 as the third stop on her tour exhibition after Beijing (2012) and Shanghai (2014).
Curated by Chen Lüsheng, vice director of the National Museum of China, the exhibition, Dialogue, will feature a series of Ai's works created based on subjects including industry, nature, and modern technology.
According to Ai's studio, the exhibition constitutes a dialogue with several great masters' works selected from the museum's masterpiece collection, and stresses the link between East and West in terms of culture and religion.
One of these dialogues, Ai's audio installation To Da Vinci will be placed side by side with Leonardo Da Vinci's Portrait of a Musician. The work consists of a giant and complicated industrial music box with numerous gears that plays a melody when turned.
Ai created the melody based on the unclear musical notations in the painting and to show her respect for this great master.
The exhibition will mark the first time the Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana Museum will hold an exhibition for a contemporary artist, and is also the first time Ai has held a solo exhibition in the Western Hemisphere.
Originally a 400-year-old library, the museum boasts numerous masterpieces from the Renaissance, including 1,119 drafts that came from the hand of Da Vinci himself.
The exhibition is scheduled to run until September 5.
