Cosmotechnics: Ding Yi as a Planetary Code

Ding Yi's work between abstraction, space, and philosophy. Ding Yi: Cosmotechnics is the publication accompanying the solo exhibition by Chinese artist Ding Yi at the Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Venice, opening concurrently with the Venice Biennale in 2026. Edited by Alfredo Cramerotti and Auronda Scalera, the volume focuses on the artist's long-standing Appearance of Crosses series, approaching the cross motif as a generative system through which abstraction, perception, and spatial experience converge. The book documents twelve newly produced paintings on basswood panels, conceived in close dialogue with Carlo Scarpa's architectural language and installed as a contemplative "forest." Through extensive visual documentation, the publication conveys the installation's rhythmic, luminous, and spatial qualities, as well as the two stone steles placed in the Giardino Scarpa, which extend the project's symbolic and spatial field beyond the exhibition space. A curated selection of historical works traces the evolution of Ding Yi's practice from the late 1980s to the present, situating the new paintings within a broader temporal and material continuum. The accompanying catalogue documents the Venice exhibition and offers a critical framework for understanding Ding Yi's practice through newly commissioned texts and comprehensive visual documentation, situating his work within wider art-historical, architectural, and philosophical contexts.