“Untitled,” courtesy of the artist.

The main galleries upstairs at the Freedom Tower, part of MDC Museum of Art + Design gallery system, are expansive, white-walled spaces. They can have a tendency to dwarf the art that is shown in them; it can be a tricky place to exhibit certain types of works.

Such is not the case with the 11 Shen Wei paintings that are the main event until February. The large-scale, mostly black, white and gray works with a smattering of other colors here or there (in oil, acrylic, house paint on canvas and linen), seem like great candidates to get lost on the white walls. In fact, their swirling, active presence ignites the galleries; you can feel the power of this Chinese artist’s strokes and vision at every turn.

These abstract landscapes that Shen Wei creates could also potentially fall into cliché – both from a Chinese and Western perspective. But these new canvases feel fresh and free of confines from old traditions, although clearly he is influenced and reverential to them. The black ink, the calligraphic strokes do harken back to classic Chinese, a contemplative view of nature. The compositions are also imprinted with 18th and 19th century European visions of broad, vast untouched landscapes and Romantic notions (both traditions have, in fact, influenced each other for hundreds of years). But Shen Wei then makes his paintings move – they are not still views, but kinetic worlds, their elements sometimes colliding, dripping and pouring into each other.

“Untitled,” courtesy of the artist.

So it is no surprise that these paintings were paired with a week of the artist’s choreographed dance during Art Basel. Shen made an international impression when he choreographed the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics in 2008 – his worlds are not colliding, really. They are colluding. The dancers slowly snaked around the rooms and paintings while the audience stood around them, making the galleries come to life in more than a metaphorical way. A theatrical feel to the exhibit may also come from the fact that Shen studied Chinese opera, and is involved in his own set designs.

Shen Wei’s “In Black, White and Gray” is one of those treats that has been left behind after Basel. Although the dancers are gone, the emotion and motion that flows through the exhibit remains.

“In Black, White and Gray” runs through Feb. 1 at The Freedom Tower at MDC, 600 Biscayne Blvd., Miami; www.mdcmoad.org.