Line, Form, Qi: Calligraphic Art from the Fondation INK Collection @ LACMA, Los Angeles + Catalogue

Line, Form, Qi: Calligraphic Art from the Fondation INK Collection

LACMA, Los Angeles

Through October 19, 2025

Gu Gan 

Spring Rain, 2000 

Los Angeles County Museum of Art,

promised gift of the Fondation INK 

© Gu Gan Estate, photo by Maurice Aeschimann, Geneva,

courtesy of the Fondation INK

Joey Leung Ka-yin

Daisy Asks, 2012 

Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 

promised gift of the Fondation INK 

© Joey Leung Ka-yin, photo by Maurice Aeschimann, Geneva, 

courtesy of the Fondation INK

Fung Ming Chip 

Buddhist Heort Sutra, ref 14, 2006 

Los Angeles County Museum of Art, promised gill of the Fondation INK 

© Fung Ming Chip, photo by Maurice Aeschimann, Geneva, 

courtesy of the Fondation INK

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) presents Line, Form, Qi: Calligraphic Art from the Fondation INK Collection. The exhibition examines experimental works by 34 modern and contemporary calligraphic artists including Fung Ming Chip, Gu Gan, Inoue Yūichi, Lee In, Henri Michaux, Nguyễn Quang Thắng, Qiu Zhijie, Tong Yang-Tze, Wang Dongling, Wei Ligang, and Xu Bing, among others. This is the second in a series of exhibitions of works from LACMA’s Fondation INK Collection, a 400-piece collection of contemporary art in the spirit of ink.

Regional groups of avant-garde modem and contemporary calligraphers have developed across East Asia from the mid-20th century to the present, many of whose works engage with or respond to Chinese characters. Spanning ink on paper, Works on canvas, wood board pieces, and ceramics, the exhibition illuminates how their practices have influenced and informed one another, as well as connections between East Asian calligraphy and Western abstract art. Line, Form, Qi is curated by Susanna Ferrell, Wynn Resorts Associate Curator of Chinese Art, and Wan Kong, The Mozhai Foundation Assistant Curator of Chinese Art, at LACMA.

"While East Asian calligraphy is anchored in tradition, it remains an extremely lively and experimental practice," said Susanna Ferrell. "I am thrilled to introduce to our visitors— many, for the first time—work by artists and art groups with limited exposure in the U.S., such as the Vietnamese Zenei Group of Five."

"As an art historian trained mostly in traditional Chinese art, I find it incredibly exciting to see how artists continue to reveal infinite possibilities for integrating deeply rooted traditions with contemporary concepts and materials," added Wan Kong.

"Line, Form, Qi makes critical connections between artistic practices from mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore, as weil as Korea, Japan, Vietnam, and France," said LACMA CEO and Wallis Annenberg Director Michael Govan. "With the unparalleled support of Fondation INK Collection founders, Gérard and Dora Cognié, LACMA is advancing its mission to reflect Los Angeles's diverse, interlocking cultures across our collection, exhibitions, and scholarship."

Une, Form, Qi presents more than 60 works across four thematic sections:

The evolution of Chinese characters from oracle bane inscriptions to standard script has been a process of abstraction: from painting pictorial images to writing standardized symbols. The exhibition's first section, Pictograph, spotlights experimentation with the interplay of writing and painting. Here, artists explore and deconstruct the origin of Chinese script. This includes Gu Gan's merging of Chinese tradition and Western abstraction in Spring Rain (2000), which simultaneously recalls and defies historical references. In Landscript (2022), Xu Bing situates written characters within his landscape to retether contemporary characters to the natural elements that once inspired their design.

Message probes relationships between content and form in Chinese writing. The artists featured in this section are conscious of bath the linguistic and visual expression of characters, and incorporate these dual aspects into their works. One of the earliest works included in the exhibition, A (1961), shows lnoue Yiiichi's return to single, inked characters on paper after years of breaking boundaries between abstract painting and calligraphy. Moving through ti me, Joey Leung Ka-yin's Daisy Asks (2012) contemporizes the gongbi (fineline) painting technique by instilling it with imagined narratives grounded in the daily life and culture of Hong Kong. Leung's Cantonese text merges satiricallanguage with classical poetic structure, reading like a single-panel comic strip with an inscription that mimies Fangsong, an imitation Song-dynasty typeface.

Calligraphers in East Asia have traditionally learned by referencing and copying specifie scripts established by their predecessors. Re-Form, however, explores how artists have come to create new forms of characters through persona!, cultural, and existential experiences. In Buddhist Heart Sutra, ref 16 (2006), Fung Ming Chip's calligraphy appears to be relatively standard, but on closer inspection, the center of each character is punctuated by slightly more saturated ink. Buddhist Heart Sutra, ref 14 (2006) juxtaposes the composition with white triangles surrounded by faint impressions of the same text.

ln the final section, Abstraction, artists distill components of calligraphie art, such as a single black ink brushstroke or the shape of a black of text. Departing from tradition, these calligraphy-inspired works must be experienced rather than read. Irene Chou cultivated a language of li nes in her abstract paintings, inspired by script found carved into a series of Sth-century boulders in north-central China. Her featured work, The Universe is My Mind, combines elements of her one-stroke painting technique with the shape of a circle-an evolution of a sphere motif that had previously emerged in her work as a symbol for love and her inner mind.

Line, Form, Qi: Calligraphic Art 

from the Fondation INK Collection

Published 2025 | ISBN: 9781636811581

Image courtesy of DelMonico Books

Publication: The exhibition's accompanying catalogue explores significant trends and innovations in contemporary calligraphic art, including abstraction of the character, performance and phenomenological practice, and experimentation with alternative or nontraditional materials and calligraphy methods such as incense burn drawing and lithography. This publication also addresses different through lines from premodern calligraphy to contemporary practice, reflecting the evolution of the Chinese language from pictograph to ideograph and beyond. Line, Form, Qi: Calligraphie Art from the Fondation INK Collection is edited with text by Susanna Ferrell and Wan Kong. Foreword by Michael Govan. Text by Rika Hiro, Stephen Little, Virginia Moon, and Li Wei Ng. Co-published by LACMA and Del Monica Books/D.A.P.

Line, Form, Qi was organized by the Los Angeles Counly Museum of Art and curated by Susanna Ferrell, Wynn Resorts Associate Curator of Chinese Art, and Wan Kong, The Mozhai Foundation Assistant Curator of Chinese Art, at LACMA.

LACMA - Los Angeles County Museum of Art

5905 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA, 90036

www.lacma.org

Line, Form, Qi: Calligraphic Art from the Fondation INK Collection

LACMA, Los Angeles

April 6 - October 19, 2025

Gunnel Wåhlstrand @ Turku Art Museum, Finland

Gunnel Wåhlstrand 

Turku Art Museum 

Through 14 September 2025 

GUNNEL WÅHLSTRAND 

Photographer: Mikael Olsson 

GUNNEL WÅHLSTRAND 

Rose, 2020 

Ink-wash on paper, 125 x 154 cm

Private Collection

Photograph: Jean-Baptiste Béranger

GUNNEL WÅHLSTRAND

Wave, 2015

Ink-wash on paper, 245 x 160 cm

Private Collection

Photograph: Per-Erik Adamsson

GUNNEL WÅHLSTRAND

The Last Island, 2012 

Ink-wash on paper, 157 x 218 cm

Magasin III Museum for Contemporary Art, Stockholm 

Photograph: Jean-Baptiste Béranger

Gunnel Wåhlstrand, one of Sweden’s most prominent contemporary artists, is known for her large-scale ink-wash paintings that depict memories, people, and landscapes with photographic precision and poetic sensitivity. Her works are rooted in her own personal history and explore memory, the connections between past and present, and the quiet depths of human existence.

Painting with ink on large paper is a slow, meditative process that demands the utmost precision. Gunnel Wåhlstrand does not paint the darkest darks right away; instead, the lights, shadows, and subtle tones in between emerge from the interplay between the saturation of the ink, the many transparent layers, and the light-bearing space of the paper. The irreversible method allows no room for error, and being aware of these risks helps the artist maintain focus. Through patient repetition, Gunnel Wåhlstrand creates mesmerizingly beautiful worlds that convey a sense of intense presence. Gunnel Wåhlstrand can spend up to six months committed to each painting, and her production is purposefully sparse—54 works in the past 23 years. 

GUNNEL WÅHLSTRAND

Mother Profile, 2009

Ink-wash on paper, 188,5  x 137,5 cm

Magasin III Museum for Contemporary Art, Stockholm 

Photograph: Björn Larsson

GUNNEL WÅHLSTRAND

White Peacock, 2007-2009

Ink-wash on paper, 109 x 160 cm 

Private Collection

Photograph: Björn Larsson

Gunnel Wåhlstrand bases her work on her personal history, photographs from her family album, and, more recently, her own snapshots of places saturated with memory. For over a decade, her art has sought to bridge the distance to her father, who took his own life when she was just one year old. His death was not talked about in the family, and even as a child, Gunnel Wåhlstrand turned to old family photographs in an attempt to understand him. The large scale of the paintings and the painstaking working method evolved from the artist’s deep need to linger in the process and immerse herself in the world of these images. Transcending time and space, her paintings interweave the gazes of different generations—gazes shaped by absence and distance. In her more recent works, the artist’s own experiences and memories of the photographed places merge with the intimate, inner world of the painted landscapes. The linear passage of time seems to shift, as if opening toward eternity.

GUNNEL WÅHLSTRAND

Långedrag, 2004

Ink-wash on paper, 209 x 157 cm / 192 x 140 cm 

Magasin III Museum for Contemporary Art, Stockholm 

Photograph: Björn Larsson

GUNNEL WÅHLSTRAND

The Desk, 2004 

Ink-wash on paper, 206 x 157  cm

Maria Bonnier Dahlin Foundation 

Maria Bonnier Dahlins Stiftelse 

GUNNEL WÅHLSTRAND

By the Window, 2003

Ink-wash on paper, 151 x 198 cm

Collection Michael Storåkers 

Photograph: Björn Larsson

The artist’s first solo exhibition in Finland presents works spanning her entire career from 2002 to 2023. The works are on loan from private and public collections, including Andréhn-Schiptjenko Gallery, the Maria Bonnier Dahlin Foundation, Magasin III Museum of Contemporary Art, Malmö Art Museum, the Nordic Watercolour Museum, and the Sten A. Olsson Foundation. The exhibition is produced in collaboration with Prince Eugen’s Waldemarsudde and curated by Selina Kiiskinen and Kari Immonen from Turku Art Museum.

Gunnel Wåhlstrand (b. 1974, Uppsala) lives and works in Stockholm. She made her breakthrough immediately after graduating from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm in 2003. Her recent solo exhibitions have been held at Prince Eugen’s Waldemarsudde (2024), Gothenburg Art Museum (2019), Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam (2017), and Magasin III in Stockholm (2017).

TURKU ART MUSEUM

Aurakatu 26, 20100 Turku

turuntaidemuseo.fi

Gunnel Wahlstrand

Turku Art Museum , 6 June –14 September 2025

Ink Art: Past as Present in Contemporary China, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Ink Art: Past as Present in Contemporary China 

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 

Through April 6, 2014 

Zhang Huan, Chinese, born 1965

张洹家谱

Family Tree, 2001

Nine chromogenic prints

Sheet (each): 21 × 16 1/2 in. (53.3 × 41.9 cm)

Lent by The Walther Collection

Photo © Yale University Art Gallery

A major loan exhibition of contemporary Chinese art presenting works by 35 artists born in China is on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Featuring 70 works in various media—paintings, calligraphy, photographs, woodblock prints, video, and sculpture—that were created during the past three decades, Ink Art: Past as Present in Contemporary China demonstrates how China’s ancient pattern of seeking cultural renewal through the reinterpretation of past models remains a viable creative path. Although all of the artists have transformed their sources through new modes of expression, visitors can recognize thematic, aesthetic, or technical attributes in their creations that have meaningful links to China’s artistic past. The exhibition is organized thematically into four parts and includes such highlights as Xu Bing’s dramatic Book from the Sky (ca. 1988), an installation that fill an entire gallery; Family Tree (2000), a set of vivid photographs documenting a performance by Zhang Huan in which his facial features—and his identity—are obscured gradually by physiognomic texts that are inscribed directly onto his face; and Map of China (2006) by Ai Weiwei, which is constructed entirely of wood salvaged from demolished Qing dynasty temples.  

Maxwell K. Hearn, Douglas Dillon Chairman of the Metropolitan Museum’s Department of Asian Art, stated: “A unique feature of this landmark exhibition is the way in which it positions contemporary art from a non-Western culture within an encyclopedic art museum. Instead of being presented by the Metropolitan’s Department of Modern and Contemporary Art, Ink Art is curated by members of the Department of Asian Art and displayed in the Museum’s permanent galleries for Chinese painting and calligraphy, featuring artworks that may best be understood as part of the continuum of China’s traditional culture. While these works may also be appreciated from the perspective of global art, the curatorial argument is that, by examining them through the lens of Chinese historical artistic paradigms, layers of meaning and cultural significance that might otherwise go unnoticed are revealed. Ultimately, both points of view contribute to a more enriched understanding of these creations.” 

Liu Wei, Chinese, born 1965

刘炜花儿 (detail)

Untitled No. 6 "Flower", 2003

Accordion album of twenty-four leaves with silk brocade cover; pencil, acrylic, ink, and watercolor on paper

Image (each leaf): 9 5/8 × 6 1/2 in. (24.5 × 16.5 cm)

Lent by a private collection, New York

Photo courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Section 1: The Written Word

Writing is China’s highest form of artistic expression as well as its most fundamental means of communication. Valued for both its semantic content and aesthetic significance, the written word conveys personal as well as public meaning. Given the inherent power of this universal medium, the written word—particularly brush-written calligraphy—has been a rich terrain for artistic exploration in China. The exhibition features key early works by Xu Bing (b. 1955), Gu Wenda (b. 1955), Qiu Zhijie (b. 1969), and Zhang Huan (b. 1965)—all of whom have found ways to subvert the semantic and aesthetic functions of language.

Section 2: New Landscapes

For more than one thousand years, landscape imagery has been used to convey values and moral standards, both of individuals and of society as a whole. Today, as China is being transformed by modernization, artists continue to mine the symbolic potential of landscape imagery to comment on the changing face of China and to explore the “mind landscape” of the individual. A rich selection of paintings, photographs, videos, and films in this section highlighted the diverse ways in which contemporary artists have drawn inspiration from earlier compositions and themes. On view are works by Ren Jian (b. 1955), Liu Dan (b. 1953), and Yang Yongliang (b. 1980), all of whom have revived and transformed the monumental handscroll format with powerful new imagery. This section also displays works by Ai Weiwei (b. 1957), Shi Guorui (b. 1964), and Xing Danwen (b. 1967) that offer stark commentaries on the impersonal nature of China’s expanding urban landscapes; and works by Fang Lijun (b. 1963), Yang Fudong (b. 1971), and Qiu Anxiong (b. 1972), who use woodblock printing, film, or video to explore man’s increasing disconnection from the natural environment. 

Yang Fudong, Chinese, born 1971

杨福东 留兰

Still from Liu Lan, 2003

Single-channel video, 35mm black-and-white film transferred to DVD, with sound; 14 min.

Lent by Marian Goodman Gallery, New York

Photo courtesy the artist

Section 3: Abstraction

Abstraction is at the heart of Chinese painting and calligraphy. Because the brush mark has always been recognized as a record of the artist’s hand, in addition to performing a descriptive or semantic role, both painting and calligraphy have been valued for their abstract expressive potential. Benefitting from such a rich tradition of exploiting the abstract and symbolic qualities of painting and writing, contemporary Chinese artists have been able selectively to adopt Western notions of nonfigurative art to augment and expand their expressive goals. The work by classically trained calligrapher Wang Dongling (b. 1945) included in this section exemplify those artists who have used their command of traditional techniques to create large-scale abstractions emphasizing the dynamic gestural qualities of calligraphy while divorcing the work from any suggestion of semantic signification. Two examples on view from the Divine Light series by Zhang Yu (b. 1959) feature circular or rectilinear forms that evoke cosmic events—an exploding star or a planet coalescing from a sphere of gaseous elements—that are at once beautiful and terrifying. 

Wang Dongling, Chinese, born 1945

王冬龄 守白

Being Open and Empty, 2005

Hanging scroll; ink on paper

Image: 87 1/4 × 57 in. (221.6 × 144.8 cm)

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the artist, 2013

Photo courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Section 4: Beyond the Brush

A final component of the exhibition introduces works that neither fit into the above three thematic categories nor derive their primary identity from traditional forms of ink art; yet they exhibit an ink art aesthetic through their rich associations with Chinese literati pastimes or patronage. Highlights in this section are two performance-related pieces: an album by Cai Guo-Qiang (b. 1957) that envisions his plan for Project to Extend the Great Wall of China by 10,000 Meters: Project for Extraterrestrials No. 10, presented together with a three-channel video of the actual event; and Huang Yongping’s (b. 1954) 43-foot-long handscroll documenting his installation pieces from 1985 to 2001. Other works on view includes scholars’ rocks made from silicone or stainless steel by Zhang Jianjun (b. 1955) and Zhan Wang (b. 1962) and a dragon robe made of polyvinyl chloride by Wang Jin (b. 1962). 

Ai Weiwei, Chinese, born 1957

艾未未浪

The Wave, 2005

Glazed ceramic

H. 6 1/8 (15.7 cm); W. 16 7/8 in. (42.9 cm); D. 14 3/4 in. (37.6 cm)

Lent by a private collection, New York

Photo courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Zhan Wang, Chinese, born 1962

展望假山石

Artificial Rock #10, August 8, 2001

Stainless steel; wood stand

H. 29 1/2 in. (75 cm); W. 17 11/16 in. (45 cm); D. 7 1/2 in. (19 cm)

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Purchase, Friends of Asian Art Gifts, 2006

Photo courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art

In conjunction with the exhibition, the Museum will present a full-day public symposium with talks by leading scholars of Chinese contemporary art on February 21 and a Sunday at the Met program on February 23, as well as gallery talks, a studio workshop, an artist demonstration of calligraphy techniques, and a teen program called Ink Experiments.

The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue.  

Ink Art: Past as Present in Contemporary China is curated by Maxwell K. Hearn. 

The exhibition is featured on the Museum’s website: www.metmuseum.org

Chinese Contemporary Abstract Ink @ Pearl Lam Galleries, Shanghai - Beyond Black and White - Artists: Feng Mengbo, Lan Zhenghui, Qiu Deshu, Qiu Zhenzhong, Wang Dongling, Wang Tiande, Wei Ligang, Zheng Chongbin

Beyond Black and White

Chinese Contemporary Abstract Ink

Feng Mengbo, Lan Zhenghui, Qiu Deshu, Qiu Zhenzhong, Wang Dongling, Wang Tiande, Wei Ligang, Zheng Chongbin

Pearl Lam Galleries, Shanghai

21 July – 7 September 2013 

WANG DONGLING 王冬龄

Yuan Ji (2013)

Ink on Paper, 96 x 180 cm (37 4/5 x 70 9/10 in.)

©  Wang Dongling, Courtesy of Pearl Lam Galleries

Pearl Lam Galleries presents Beyond Black and White, an exhibition showcasing 18 works by eight Chinese contemporary ink artists including Feng Mengbo, Lan Zhenghui, Qiu Deshu, Qiu Zhenzhong, Wang Dongling, Wang Tiande, Wei Ligang and Zheng Chongbin. These artists are part of a growing circle in China that draws inspiration from traditional Chinese ink painting and its philosophy as well as Chinese calligraphy. 

The medium and technique of ink and brush plays a significant role for these artists as they seek to display the unique heritage of Chinese artistic culture in a new, contemporary context that reflects today’s globalised world. The philosophy of ink painting also plays a central role among contemporary ink artists whose energy is laid bare in their artistic creations. This energy expresses another realm of beauty that goes beyond the visual quality of the painting.

This is known as Qi, or vitality, and is one of the Six Principles of Chinese Painting, established by Xie He in the 5th century. This exhibition aims to address the role of ink and its enduring philosophy in contemporary China and challenge the traditional use of the medium.

The artists in Beyond Black and White are all deeply indebted to Chinese culture and art history, using these traditions to guide their work whilst embracing a wide range of sources including Chinese calligraphy, landscape painting and poetry. Whether it manifests itself through the medium, the philosophy or the form, they all draw inspiration from the classical canon.

The exhibition demonstrates that through an exploration of China’s past, contemporary Chinese artists are able to make sense of the present: creating works which are relevant in today’s society as well as being rooted in Chinese culture’s deep appreciation for artistic scholarship. It is this combination that has led to the popularity and re-evaluation of contemporary Chinese ink painting.

WANG DONGLING

The exhibition presents Tiger Wind, a monumental cursive calligraphy work by Wang Dongling. The artist’s rapid creative process is filled with uncertainty, and the large scale of the piece emphasizes the the relationship between the artist’s bodily movements and the finished work of art, whilst driving the viewer’s own immersive experience of the piece. Wang’s monumental work breaks through the traditional rules of penmanship, form and composition, revealing the artist’s unique and distinctive style and personality.

Wang Dongling was born in 1945 in Jiangsu. Lives and works in Hangzhou. Wang Dongling graduated from Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts (now China Academy of Art) in Hangzhou in 1981 and is now professor of Calligraphy Department of China Academy of Art, and Director of Contemporary Calligraphy Research Centre of China Academy of Art. 

Wang Dongling is one of the most successful and gifted of the modernist calligraphers in China and one of the few who has for many years enjoyed an international reputation. His works were influenced by his experience in the United States from 1989 to 1992, when he served as a visiting professor at the University of Minnesota and at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Wang Dongling began developing a new form of composition that synthesizes traditional Chinese aesthetics with modernist art. Often, Wang’s works contain no decipherable Chinese characters, and have tended more towards abstract painting than to calligraphy. Wang Dongling has been enormously influential in the development of contemporary calligraphy and ink painting in China.

WANG TIANDE

Also exhibited at Pearl Lam Galleries is Wang Tiande's  installation Chinese Clothes, where the artist presents a traditional Chinese silk dress (qipao) which he has burned through to reveal glimpses of another layer of silk below covered in calligraphy. The tension between the painted and burned words and the costume is united by the traditional aesthetics of calligraphy, thus creating a deeper meaning beyond the object.

Wang Tiande was born in Shanghai in 1960. The artist aims to re-contextualize tradition within a contemporary framework through ink paintings, digital compositions, and thought-provoking installations. With ink paintings which reference traditional Literati concepts, Wang Tiande captures a new form of expression that reflects today’s contemporary culture. By burning symbols, which resemble Chinese characters, onto rice paper, his works evoke the essence of traditional Chinese art in a contemporary context. The burn marks are made with an incense stick, creating shapes and spaces, similar to that of landscapes, water and mountains.

Wang Tiande’s innovative approach does not dispel the significance and influence of tradition in his work; rather, he embraces traditional concepts and methods while injecting a modern perspective that is fresh and distinctly his own, recreating ink brush painting for the twenty-first century.

QIU ZHENZHONG 

The exhibition presents Yengisar Knife from Qiu Zhenzhong’s ‘New Poetry Series’. Qiu uses his unique style and subtle control of space, time and line to combine elements of traditional Chinese ink painting for his modern art. His concern is the aesthetics of the space of calligraphy as well as the brushstrokes. Qiu’s paintings aim to liberate traditional Chinese calligraphy and ink painting from its typical ideology, so as to transform its aesthetic function into something more authentic and absolute.

Qiu Zhenzhong, born in 1947 in Nanchang, He is Professor at the China Central Academy of Fine Arts, Director of the Calligraphy and Painting Comparative Research Centre, Member of the National Art Museum of China Expert Committee, and Vice Director of the Chinese Calligraphers Association Academic Committee.China,

Qiu uses his unique style and subtle control of space, time and line to combine elements of traditional Chinese ink painting, calligraphy and modern art. Qiu’s paintings aim to liberate traditional Chinese calligraphy and ink painting from its typical ideology, so as to transform its aesthetic function into something more authentic and absolute.

In October 2012, Qiu held a solo exhibition at Pearl Lam Galleries Hong Kong entitled “From Romance of the West Chamber to Matisse”. The exhibition included two series of works, one inspired by the Chinese masterpieces of wood-block print based on the Chinese classic “Romance of the West Chamber” and the other inspired by the Western master of modern art: Matisse. Through his use of lyrical lines, form and composition, Qiu Zhenzhong reinterprets these iconic images from Western and Chinese culture using this ancient ink brush technique, and both poses and attempts to answer questions of tradition, art and interpretation.

FENG MENGBO

Feng Mengbo was born in 1966 in Beijing, China. He graduated from the Printmaking Department of Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing in 1991. He is the currently a guest professor at the Central Academy of Fine Arts and lives and works in Beijing, China.

As a leading new-media artist in China, Feng Mengbo has worked at the intersection of painting and digital media since the early 1990s, he has infused his personal thoughts, experiences and cultural memories into paintings and new media works like CD-Rom installations and large-scale interactive video game installations. Feng Mengbo has constantly combined the digital and the handmade, as well as the past and the present, in a thought-provoking and dynamic way. Beginning in 2005, he returned to painting without abandoning his deep immersion in the cyber-world, allowing him to reassess and explore traditional Chinese culture in his own unique way.

LAN ZHENGHUI

Lan Zhenghui was born in 1959 in Sichuan, China. He graduated from Sichuan Fine Arts Institute in 1987. Lan currently lives and works in Beijing and Toronto.

Lan Zhenghui‘s monumental paintings and striking use of black ink reflect his constant pursuit of expression and feeling. His works are “bursts of emotion on paper” and are characterized by an abstract ink-splash style. Influenced by his background in science, Lan’s aesthetic moves deftly between the realms of the rational and irrational. His brushstrokes are created by systemic body movements, which contribute to the visual and spiritual impact of the works with the swelling of muscle, blood and physical power.

QIU DESHU

Born in Shanghai in 1948, Qiu Deshu is one of the few artists in the field of contemporary ink painting to have gained international recognition since the 1980s. Qiu studied traditional ink painting and seal carving when he was a child, however his career in art was interrupted by the Cultural Revolution when he was sent to work at a plastics factory. At the end of this period, he picked up ink painting again and co-founded the Grass Painting Society (Cao Cao Hua She), one of China’s first experimental artist circles in the post-Mao period.

In the early 1980s, he developed his signature style of works called “fissuring” (lie bian). The concept of “fissuring”, which literally means tearing and changing in Chinese, is a pictorial metaphor for the artist’s life and as his artistic career, both of which have experienced dramatic disruptions and setbacks. In these works, he applies vivid colors to xuan paper, which he tears up and mounts the fragments to a base layer, often leaving space between to create a pictorial field with the “cracks” that he feels are symbolic of life’s journey.

WEI LIGANG

Born in 1964. Wei’s works can be classified into three styles. The first style takes the form of modern calligraphy with a freehand foundation and adapts the traditional rules of calligraphy creation. This style mixes conventional strokes with painterly ideas, whilst at the same time inherits the spirit of the modern Japanese calligraphic school, in trying to delineate the border between abstract and concrete. The second style utilizes experimental ink applied in an abstract manner, mixed with new materials like lacquer and propylene, with the aim to build a bridge between Chinese and Western paintings. The third style, or “Wei’s Works” as the artist calls them, are the overall result of his exploration into Chinese characters.

Although his works display certain characteristics of Western modern art forms and ideas, their most vital features are again threefold: their unreserved focus on Chinese characters, the structure of the characters, and the significance placed on the strokes themselves as opposed to the representative aspect of the picture. In all his works we can sense these features, consciously or otherwise.

ZHENG CHONGBIN

Born in Shanghai in 1961, Zheng now lives between San Francisco and China. Throughout his career, Zheng has reinterpreted traditional Chinese art and fused it with contemporary Western Abstract art. The artist uses ink wash techniques to enrich his artistic language, constantly exploring the potential of ink as a medium, whilst also working in other media including installation, porcelain and video.

Zheng received rigorous ink brush training in the 80s whilst he also absorbed American Abstract Expressionism and Minimalism, combining them to create his own unique visual language. Zheng’s abstract works originate from his exploration of space whilst expressing a deeper metaphysical meaning not restricted by written language or representational forms. By blending Western and Eastern art traditions, Zheng’s works strive towards a harmonious balance which ink painters have for centuries looked to achieve.

PEARL LAM GALLERIES

181 Middle Jiangxi Road, G/F, Huangpu, Shanghai

www.pearllam.com

Updated 11/10/2022

Philip Guston: Works on Paper, The Morgan Library & Museum, New York

Philip Guston: Works on Paper 

The Morgan Library & Museum, New York 

May 2 - August 31, 2008 

Philip Guston

Untitled, 1950

Ink on parchment paper, 47.6 x 60.3 cm (18 ¾ x 23 ¾ in)

Private Collection

© Estate of Philip Guston

Courtesy McKee Gallery, New York

Photo Credit: Sara Wells, New York

Philip Guston

Drawing Related to Zone (Drawing No. 19), 1954

Ink on paper, 44.5 x 59.1 cm (17 ½ x 23 ¼ in)

Private Collection

© Estate of Philip Guston

Courtesy McKee Gallery, New York

Photo Credit: Michael Korol, New York

Philip Guston

Untitled, 1958

Ink on paper, 43.2 x 56.6 cm (17 x 22 ¼ in)

© Estate of Philip Guston

Courtesy McKee Gallery, New York

Philip Guston

Celebration, 1961

Ink on paper, 65.4 x 77.5 cm (25 ¾ x 30 ½ in)

© Estate of Philip Guston

Courtesy McKee Gallery, New York

Photo Credit: Sara Wells, New York

“It is the nakedness of drawing that I like. The act of drawing is what locates, suggests, discovers. . .”

⎯ Philip Guston

The extraordinary drawings of Philip Guston (1913–1980) are the subject of a major exhibition at The Morgan Library & Museum. Together with Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning, Philip Guston is recognized as one of the most influential American artists of the twentieth century. The exhibition marks the first retrospective of his drawings in twenty years and the Morgan is the only American venue. 

Organized by the KunstMuseum Bonn, and the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung Munich, in cooperation with the artist’s estate, Philip Guston: Works on Paper examines the importance of drawing throughout key periods of Guston’s career, from the mid-1940s to 1980. While the artist is primarily known for his paintings, his drawings occupy a special place in his oeuvre as they influenced new phases of creativity and served to articulate radically different approaches. 

The Morgan Library & Museum’s presentation of the exhibition features more than one-hundred drawings, including many rarely seen works that were left in the artist’s studio after his death as well as major loans from museums and private collections.

“The Morgan Library & Museum is thrilled to be the only American venue for this outstanding exhibition,” said Morgan director William M. Griswold. “This is one of the Morgan’s first exhibitions devoted to a twentieth-century artist and Guston is one of the greats of the modern era. This show demonstrates the amazing range and versatility of his work. It is truly remarkable to see so many of his drawings together in one show.” 

Philip Guston was a prolific draftsman who often turned to drawing to explore new directions in his art before applying them to painting. Several times during the course of his career he stopped painting altogether to concentrate on drawing. Such phases mark the dramatic changes that characterized Philip Guston’s art from figuration to abstraction and vice versa.

“Philip Guston’s work expresses the tensions and conflicts of the modern world with a sense of urgency that still resonates today,” said Isabelle Dervaux, curator of modern drawings at the Morgan. “The relevance of his work to this day can be seen in its wide influence on contemporary artists.” 

In the 1950s, when Philip Guston was a central figure of the abstract expressionist movement, he developed a form of abstract, linear drawings characterized by a great concern with structure and balance, in contrast with the more spontaneous gesture typical of the New York school. A prime example of his style during this period is Drawing Related to Zone (Drawing No. 19; 1954) which derives its wonderful rhythm from its balanced composition as well as from variations in the thickness and pressure of the ink strokes.

Philip Guston

Untitled, 1966

Ink on paper, 48.3 x 60.6 cm (19 x 23 7/8 in)

© Estate of Philip Guston

Courtesy McKee Gallery, New York

Photo Credit: Richard P. Goodbody, Inc., New York

Philip Guston

Untitled, 1967

Ink on paper, 44.5 x 57 cm (17 ½ x 22 ½ in)

© Estate of Philip Guston

Courtesy McKee Gallery, New York

Photo Credit: Sara Wells, New York

For a two-year period, from 1966 to 1968, Philip Guston stopped painting and produced only drawings of startling economy. Even in his most abstract drawings, however, he did not exclude references to the real world. Simple forms evoke primitive renderings of common objects, as in Untitled (1967), where an oval shape can be read as a stone or a head. It was through the hundreds of drawings created during this period that Philip Guston would find inspiration to move away from abstraction and embrace a figurative, almost cartoonlike imagery that would typify his work during the last decade of his life. 

Philip Guston

Untitled (Book), 1968

Gouache on paper board, 51 x 76 cm (20 x 30 in)

© Estate of Philip Guston

Courtesy McKee Gallery, New York

Photo Credit Richard P. Goodbody Inc., New York

Philip Guston

Untitled, 1968

Charcoal on paper, 45.4 x 57 cm (17 7/8 x 22 ½ in)

Private Collection

© Estate of Philip Guston

Courtesy McKee Gallery, New York

Photo Credit: Sara Wells

Philip Guston

Figure in Interior, 1970

Pencil on paper, 35.6 x 43.2 cm (14 x 17 in)

Private Collection

© Estate of Philip Guston

Courtesy McKee Gallery, New York

Philip Guston

Web, 1975

Ink on paper, 48.3 x 61 cm (19 x 24 in)

Private Collection

© Estate of Philip Guston

Courtesy McKee Gallery, New York

Photo Credit: Michael Korol, New York

It was a transformation that shocked the art world in 1970, as Philip Guston turned to depictions of everyday objects such as shoes, books, and irons. At the same time, disturbed by the social and political upheavals of the late 1960s, Philip Guston addressed the violence of the contemporary world through images of hooded figures reminiscent of the Ku-Klux-Klan.

From the mid-1970s on, autobiographical references became more frequent in Philip Guston’s drawings which included images of himself and his wife, Musa, often in situations reflecting the artist’s anxieties. In Web (1975), for instance, the two figures, half-hidden under a pile of shoes, are caught in a spider web. Philip Guston’s late drawings combine allegorical imagery, dominated by body fragments and accumulations of detritus, with more direct evocations of simple objects from his surroundings, as in Untitled (Cherries), 1980. 

Philip Guston

Untitled, 1980

Ink on paper, 47.6 x 66.7 cm (18 3/4 x 26 1/4 in)

Private Collection

© Estate of Philip Guston

Courtesy McKee Gallery, New York

Photo Credit: Richard P. Goodbody Inc., New York

Philip Guston

Untitled (Cherries), 1980

Ink and acrylic on board, 50.8 x 76.2 cm (20 x 30 in)

Private Collection

© Estate of Philip Guston

Philip Guston: Works on Paper is organized by the KunstMuseum Bonn and the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, Munich. The exhibition premiered at the KunstMuseum Bonn (March 1 - May 20, 2007) and traveled to the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebaek, Denmark (May 31 – August 26, 2007), the Albertina in Vienna (September 7 - November 25, 2007) and most recently the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung in Munich (December 13, 2007 - March 2, 2008). 

A fully illustrated hardcover catalogue for Philip Guston: Works on Paper, published by Hatje Cantz in 2007, features essays by Michael Semff, Christoph Schreier, Isabelle Dervaux, and Poul Erik Tøjner (216 pages, 116 illustrations, 76 in color). 

THE MORGAN LIBRARY & MUSEUM

225 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016

www.themorgan.org

Frank Tam Retrospective, Art Beatus Gallery, Vancouver

Frank Tam: Restrospective
Art Beatus Gallery, Vancouver
May 5 - July 30, 2000

Art Beatus Gallery presents a solo exhibition of works by artist, Frank Tam. Included in the Retrospective are ink paintings from the early years and mixed media installations created later in his career.

Frank Tam was one of the most remarkable artist to which he demanded a critical examination of Eastern and Western cultures. Frank Tam's study of traditional Chinese ink painting with Chao Siao-eng, a great master of Lingnan school enabled Frank Tam to gain a full understanding of traditional Chinese painting techniques and because the Lingnan school was the first to incorporate a Western influence into traditional Chinese art he was aware of Western Art practices.

Frank Tam immigrated to Canada in 1972, and his art began to grow substantially. He became dissatisfied with traditional Chinese media and began to consciously question Eastern and Western traditions and discovered a link between Eastern and Western philosophy's. The purpose of Chinese painting is not to explain the world, but rather to achieve a universal balance between nature and the artist. It follows that the creation of art must be natural yet spontaneous. Only in this state can the spirit of the soul travel. Frank Tam found similar ideas in works by Western artists Joseph Beuys, Anselm Kiefer, Brice Marden. By studying these artists Frank Tam reaffirmed a strong artistic belief.

Art Beatus presents a showcase of Frank Tam's works created in his early to late career. The Ink on paper works in the manner of his early training hang easily beside the mixed media on canvas works created up until Frank Tam's death in 1998.

ART BEATUS GALLERY, VANCOUVER
888 Nelson Street, Vancouver, BC, V6Z 2H1
www.artbeatus.com