What's on

Illustrated world

With a 25-year devotion to making illustrated books, prolific author-illustrator Jimmy Liao is, for his readers, synonymous with the genre of metropolitan fairy tales. His work delivers fantasy, warmth and a healing power through dreamy scenarios, soft colors and a mood of slight sorrow. A state of being lost only to find oneself later is a recurring theme in his world of pictures. This is what has inspired the presentation of The Found and the Lost, an immersive, interactive exhibition in which five of Liao's best-selling books are integrated — A Fish That Smiled at Me; Turn Left, Turn Right; Missing My Cat, Mr Wing and The Moon Forgets — taking people on a journey that evokes memories of childhood and pains of growth, and to find hope and courage. A WeChat mini-app was developed to help the audience navigate the exhibition at Today Art Museum, which includes drawings, interactive games, performances and installations and runs until Oct 8, and is the first stop on a domestic and overseas tour. Liao made his debut in the world of picture books in 1998 with two works, Secrets in the Woods and A Fish That Smiled at Me. His books have been published in several languages. Turn Left, Turn Right was adapted into a movie in 2003, starring Takeshi Kaneshiro and Gigi Leung, and extending Liao's work to a wider audience.

10 am-6 pm, closed on Mondays. 32 Baiziwan Road, Chaoyang district, Beijing. 010-5876-0600.

Maze of life

People entering French artist Remy Aron's exhibition in Beijing will find a green maze in the center of the showroom. The design was specially created for the show, and visitors can actually explore its passageways.

It echoes the title of the exhibition, Meditating Labyrinth of Life, as the intricate structure of a labyrinth, as well as the extended implications and metaphors of it, is a recurring theme in creation, suggesting relations between one and oneself, people and society, according to Fred Dervin, the exhibition's curator. In his paintings, Aron has built physical, visual and mental labyrinths for his audience to explore, arranging daily found objects in a way to confuse people, make them misunderstand and think, and finally, to encourage them to find solutions. "I start from the chaos of the canvas and of myself," says Aron. "And I move forward to order." His work amplifies the small corners and moments in life, depicting them in a surrealistic manner. He compels viewers into a state of meditation, by which he hopes that people can reflect on the past and present, and find a way of coexistence. An international research fellow of the China National Academy of Painting, Aron has engaged in cultural exchanges between China and France for over two decades. The exhibition, at the Ici Labas gallery, runs until Aug 13.

10:30 am-6 pm, closed on Mondays. D10, 798 art zone, Chaoyang district, Beijing. 130-0117-0598.

Genuine words

In a letter to her daughter Liang Zaibing, in 1937, architect Lin Huiyin described the hardships during her fourth trip with Liang Sicheng from Beijing to Shanxi province. At the end of the letter, she drew two maps, one showing the places en route to their destination and another of Hebei and Shanxi provinces, detailing the railways, sections of the Great Wall and the modes of transport they took: horse riding, public bus and mules. The touching six-page letter impressed many when it was on show at an exhibition commemorating the 120th anniversary of Liang Sicheng's birth two years ago, at Tsinghua University Art Museum. It has now been added to Sincerely Yours, an ongoing exhibition mounted by the museum to show personal letters from scholars of Tsinghua University, like the one Lin, who once taught architecture there, wrote. The exhibition was first presented in 2019 and was widely praised. It shows the cultural accumulations, rich emotions and temperaments of the featured intellectuals, as well as their fine writing, some of which pieces are considered excellent examples of calligraphy. The long-term exhibition runs until May 2024.

9 am-5 pm, closed on Mondays. Tsinghua University, Haidian district, Beijing. 010-6278-1012.