Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
The Art
of China
MICHAEL
GOEDHUIS
Ink
The Art of China
MICHAEL GOEDHUIS
at the
S A AT C H I G A L L E RY
Contents
11
D ominique Nahas
The Poetic Imagination in Contemporary
Chinese Ink Painting
15
Wang Tao
The Archaeological Inspiration for
Contemporary Chinese Art
17
Edward Lucie-Smith
Ink Painting, Politics and Technology
21
Eugene Wang
Ink Painting and its Modern Discontents
23
Jason Kuo
Ink 26
Ink: The Art of China 30
Contributor Biographies
182
Artist Biographies
185
Index of Artists
197
Bibliography 198
Foreword
Ink painting, with its links to calligraphy, is one of the foundation stones
of Chinese civilisation. Its contemporary manifestations, diverse as they
are, therefore draw freely from the classical canon. The constituency for
appreciation of the New Ink Art, as it has now become, is a fresh generation of
connoisseurs which has begun to develop a broad interest in Chinas history in
order to better understand the vitality of its contemporary culture.
associated media, are much aware of the elitist connotations of this aesthetic.
The early cognoscenti and practitioners were the literati, the gentlemen-scholars of the past 600 years, whose gatherings in elegant pavilions or studios were
dedicated to the art of living relishing the fragrance of nature, the conversational intercourse between intellects of similar power and tastes, the connoisseurship of wine and tea, the study of antiquities and painting and the satisfying mutual recognition of their own superiority. These salons were indeed not
far removed in purpose from the drawing-rooms of 18th century France where
the douceur de vivre reached its peak under the civilised direction of the great
hostesses of the era.
particular, the judgment of the outside world, has released the contemporary
Liu Dan
Old Cypress from the
Forbidden City (detail),
2007 (p. 74)
ink artist from the pressure to perform for the new art-world consumer. Quite
to the contrary, he feels free to try to confront his central challenge how to
7
render this traditional medium relevant and meaningful to the modern world
without too great a concern for the demands of the market.
wide range of works in this exhibition, from the cultural sensitivity of Liu Dan
to the ground-breaking video works of Qiu Anxiong, describes a diverse output
that provides a cultivated audience with the opportunity to enjoy not only the
subtle connections with the literati past but also the artists engagement with
the realities of contemporary life.
It is then the theme of this exhibition to define just how innovative and
audacious the best of these exponents are. Just as Czanne and Picasso assimilated the work of Raphael, Poussin, Velazquez and other old masters to develop
their own revolutionary language, so the ink artists are grappling with the
same challenge how to express the transformation of their society into works
that are meaningful precisely because they take account of the past in order to
make sense of the present.
We are deeply grateful to the many lenders who have so generously parted
with their works for so long, to the distinguished scholars who have contributed so generously to the value of the catalogue accompanying the exhibition,
and finally to the Saatchi Gallery and to its director Nigel Hurst for opening its
doors to us and to Ink: The Art of China.
Michael Goedhuis
Li Jin
Spring in the
Garden (detail),
2012 (p. 130)
Valerie C. Doran
Chen KeZhan
Red Autumn
(detail), 2011 (p. 50)
10
seemed to be asking a question whose implications were similar to that of Su Shis: Is chair as
a fundamental concept altered by the different
ways in which it can be depicted (whether constructed, photographed or reduced to text)? And
as for Su Shi, I would frame it like this: while his
critic was concerned with bamboo, Su Shi was
concerned with the idea of bamboo.
In the same spirit, the present exhibition
is concerned less with the phenomenon of ink
in the Chinese artistic tradition as with the
idea of ink in that tradition. And the idea of
ink here is recognized as an aesthetic arena
in which contemporary artists can freely
negotiate with the tradition, in whatever way
that is meaningful or necessary to them, and on
whatever level whether material, structural,
historical, spiritual or cultural. The range of
artists featured in the show describes the way
this discourse has expanded in the last twenty
years, attracting an increasing number of artists
with diverse backgrounds and with differing
even diametrically opposed concerns.
The end of art and end of painting arguments that took hold in the West in the 1980s
with critics like Arthur Danto and Douglas
Crimp had a strong resonance in contemporary
China, where the end of literati art and traditional ink painting had already been advocated
more than fifty years earlier by reformists and
continued to be advocated by revolutionaries,
11
Wenda Gu
The Mythos of Lost
Dynasties, C Series
No. 6: Cloud &
Water, 1996-1997
(p. 176)
interchange and mix them so as to challenge and destabilize the ideas of boundaries and traditions.
All quotations
from artists come
from private
correspondence
between the
author and the
artists undertaken
in November and
December 2011
Qin Feng
Civilisation
Landscape I, 2007
(p. 96)
Wilson Shieh
The Queen, 2007
(p. 39)
14
D ominique Nahas
Wang Tao
Gao Xingjian
Dream Mountain
(La montagne de
rve), 2005 (p. 120)
There seems to be a paradox in contemporary Chinese art. On the one hand, many
artists have taken an avant-garde stand that
differs profoundly from the classical tradition
in Chinese art history. On the other hand, a
number of artists, including the most radical
ones, claim that they are the true representatives
of Chinas grand tradition, and that their postmodern art is the only way that upholds and
continues that tradition. In the deconstruction
and re-construction of the theocratic discourse,
as well as in practical terms, archaeology plays a
significant role. My article sets out to explore the
interesting relationship between contemporary
art and archaeology.
Looking first at the phenomenon known
as Calligraphy-ism (shufazhuyi), we see that
many Chinese artists have tried to use Chinese
writing, in particular ancient manuscripts, in
their works. The classical tradition of calligraphy
is based on writing with a brush and ink on
paper, and these are thought of as soft materials.
But, before the invention and widespread use of
paper in the 1st century CE, most inscriptions
were written on a wide variety of materials, such
as animal bone, metal, stone, silk and bamboo.
In fact, most of the early calligraphic works that
have survived are on materials other than paper.
Although the main writing implement at that
Li Xubai
Heart of Zen
Inspired through
Cloud and Water,
2012
19
Edward Lucie-Smith
Liu Kuo-sung
Red Soil Plateau (detail), 2007
20
Qiu Zhijie
Ten Poems
by Su Shi (video),
2004 (p. 124)
22
Eugene Wang
Chinese ink painting remains an embarrassment for critics looking for its contemporaneity. Its abstract disposition carries a perennial
up-to-date with-it air. However, unlike usual
forms of avant-gardism, it is steeped in a venerable past, thereby repeatedly fuelling radical and
conservative arguments in equal measure.
The sticking point is often the question
of what is Chinese ink painting? Its medium
specificity is assumed: brushstrokes and ink
gradations produce a combined effect nonreplicable in other mediums. However, medium
specificity, once hyped, is likely to reify an
essentialist ink-painting lore harking back to a
priori moment in the past; subsequent carnations
are mere recapitulations, often paler ones.
The essentialist medium is itself a construct.
At some point in history, an ink painting
essentialism took shape. The ink painting, so
it goes, essentially comes down to brush-andink interplay. The brush spells out contours
and texturing strokes; the ink wash supplies
contour-less tonal gradations. The brush
expressivity derives from its wrist-controlled
modes of applications with variable movements
and speeds: centred, slanted, tipping, stippling,
trailing, slashing, halting, dashing, etc. If the
brush provides the plot line, the ink wash is the
chorus. With its variable qualitiesranging from
heavy soot-like smudge to diluted pale semidiaphanous sheenink wash sings in various
Qiu Deshu
Five-panel
Mountainscape
(detail), 2005
(p. 170)
Wenda Gu
Ink Valley and
White Water, 1986
(p. 174)
Jason Kuo
Liu Kuo-sung
Rhythm of the
Moon, 2005 (p. 110)
Ink
Introduction
2Abstraction
8 Social Commentaries
3 New Expressionism
Qiu Zhijie
Ten Poems
by Su Shi, 2004
(p. 124)
Li Huayi
Autumn Mountains,
2008 (p. 32)
of shows, both inside and beyond the Chinesespeaking world, which address the role of ink in
contemporary culture. As clarified by Pi Daojian,
curator with Huang Huansheng of the exhibition
China: 20 Years of Ink Experiment, 1980 2001 held at
the Guangdong Museum in 2001, the term Ink
Experiment was intended to highlight the fact
that the experiments of contemporary Chinese
artists go far beyond simple ink painting and now
extend to expressive ink art, abstract ink art,
conceptual ink art and installation ink art.
Traditionally, the ink used by Chinese artists for calligraphy and painting was made in
the form of dry ink sticks chiefly pine soot and
water-soluble animal adhesive that were ground
with water on an ink stone to produce liquid ink.
Contemporary artists also now use commercially
prepared liquid ink for convenience. Artists
control the density, texture and quality of their
ink and, by extension, its tonal variations and it
is this ability by which the quality of their work
has traditionally been evaluated. Inks liquidity
of course poses tremendous challenges for the
practitioner in addition to the demands placed on
them by using a pliant brush made from animal
hairs. The Neo-Traditionalists in the exhibition are particular heirs of this grand tradition
of Chinese ink painting which goes back, as an
elite art-form, more than a thousand years. Liu
Dan, Li Huayi, and Zeng Xiaojun are all painters
who trace their cultural lineage back to the great
masterpieces of the Song dynasty, while at the
same time responding to the pictorial imperatives of the contemporary world.
For a related but different interpretation
28
29
I N K: T H E A RT OF C H I NA
Li Huayi
Ink on paper
89152.4cm (35 60")
32
Li Huayi
34
Wilson Shieh
Mother, 2012
36
Wilson Shieh
38
Chun-yi Lee
Ink on paper
3 panels, large panel 244122cm (96 48")
2 smaller panels, 182.576cm (7230") each
Total size: 244274cm (96108")
40
Xu Bing
Ink on paper
3 panels, 13668cm (531/2263/4") each
Total size: 136204cm (531/2801/4")
42
Xu Bing
Ink on paper
2 panels, 134.668.6cm (5327") each
Total size: 134.6137.2cm (5354")
44
Qiu Anxiong
46
Chen KeZhan
L: RockscapeAutumn, 2011
R: Mekong Blue, 2006
48
Chen KeZhan
RedAutumn, 2011
50
Liu Qinghe
52
Liu Qinghe
54
Yuan Jai
56
Zhang Yu
58
Zhu Daoping
60
Zeng Shanqing
62
Xu Lei
64
Miao Xiaochun
66
Liu Wei
Untitled, 2006
Acrylic on paper
9457.2cm (37221/2")
68
Wu Yi
70
Wu Yi
Holiday I, 2007
72
Liu Dan
Ink on paper
259.1137.2cm (10254")
74
Liu Dan
Ink on paper
215150cm (845/859")
76
Liu Dan
Poppy, 2008
Ink on paper
215150cm (845/859")
78
Lo Ching
80
Lo Ching
82
Wang Dongling
Untitled, 2006
Ink on paper
140310cm (551/8122")
84
Wang Dongling
Ink on paper
216144.8cm (8557")
86
Qiu Jie
Pencil on paper
150168cm (591/16661/8")
88
Qiu Jie
Lijiang, 2011
Pencil on paper
120140cm (473/16551/8")
90
Gu Gan
92
Qin Feng
94
Qin Feng
96
Qin Feng
98
Wang Tiande
100
Lu Hao
102
Lu Hao
104
Liu Kuo-sung
Ink on paper
4 panels, 181.587.6cm (711/2341/2") each
Total size: 181.5350.5cm (711/2138")
106
Liu Kuo-sung
Snow-capped Mountain,
Tibet Series (No. 99), 2008
Ink on paper
185.592.5cm (731/16367/16")
108
Liu Kuo-sung
110
Zeng Xiaojun
Ink on paper
220138.5cm (8654")
112
Zeng Xiaojun
Ink on paper
199467cm (78183")
114
Wucius Wong
116
Fay Ku
118
Gao Xingjian
Dream Mountain
(La montagne de rve), 2005
Ink on paper
146207cm (571/2811/2")
120
qiu zhijie
122
Qiu Zhijie
124
qiu zhijie
Ink on paper
3 panels, 510190cm (20013/167413/16") each
Total size: 510570cm (20013/162243/8")
126
Li Jin
Feast, 2007
128
Li Jin
130
Jia Youfu
Work 1, 2007
132
Jia Youfu
Landscape, 1985
134
Wang Jinsong
Ink on paper
9072cm (357/16283/8")
136
Wang Jinsong
Ink on paper
5 panels, 13768 cm (5315/16263/4") each
Total size: 137340 cm (5315/161337/8")
138
Li Xubai
A Spring Mountain
Dream Voyage, 2008
140
Zheng Chongbin
142
Pan Gongkai
Rhythm, 2009
Ink on paper
18097.5cm (71381/4")
144
Wei Ligang
146
Wei Ligang
148
Ink on silk
84208cm (331/8817/8")
150
Pan Hsin-hua
152
Tong Yang-tze
Ink on paper
138254cm (543/8100")
154
Yang Jiechang
156
Yang Jiechang
158
Huang Zhiyang
Ink on silk
2 panels, 475140cm (187551/8") each
Total Size: 475280cm (1871101/4")
160
Yao Jui-chung
162
Wei Qingji
164
Yang Yanping
166
Qiu Deshu
168
Qiu Deshu
170
Wenda Gu
172
Wenda Gu
Ink on paper
279.5176.5cm (110691/2")
174
Wenda Gu
176
Ink on paper
2 panels, 27075cm (1065/16291/2") each
Total size; 270150cm (1065/1659")
178
R E F E R E NC E
Contributor
Biographies
Ms Valerie C. Doran
Independent Curator, Critic and Translator
in the field of Chinese contemporary art
Valerie C. Doran is an independent curator,
critic and translator in the field of Chinese
contemporary art with a special interest in
cultural cross-currents and comparative art
theory. A contributing editor of Orientations
magazine, Valerie publishes frequently on
Asian and international contemporary art;
she has also translated a number of works
by major Chinese art theorists and critics,
including Li Xianting, Gao Minglu and Gao
Xingjian. She has lectured in art theory
and curatorial practice at the Academy of
Visual Arts of Hong Kong Baptist University,
the School of Creative Media of the City
University of Hong Kong and the Para/Site
Curatorial Programme. From 2010 to 2011 she
was Honorary Lecturer in the Centre for the
Humanities and Medicine at the University of
Hong Kong and helped to initiate the Project
Arts Programme. Valerie is also an academic
advisor of the Asia Art Archive, a member of
the Gallery Advisory Committee of The Asia
Society Hong Kong, and a member of the
International Art Critics Association Hong
Kong chapter, of which she was past vicepresident. In 2009 Valerie was awarded the
Certificate of Commendation from the Hong
Kong Home Affairs Bureau for contributions to
arts and cultural activities in Hong Kong.
Dr Jason C. Kuo
Professor of Art History at the University of Maryland
Previous page:
l: Liu Qinghe
Growth II, 2005
Ink and colour on paper
65 x 55 cm (25 x 21" )
r: Liu Qinghe
Growth I, 2005
Ink and colour on paper
65 x 55 cm (25 x 21")
182
Mr Edward Lucie-Smith
Art Critic and Historian
Edward Lucie-Smith is an internationally
known art critic and historian, who is
also a published poet, an anthologist and
a practising photographer. He is generally
regarded as the most prolific and the most
widely published writer on art, with sales
for some titles totalling over 250,000 copies.
A number of his art books, among them
Movements in Art since 1945, Visual Arts of the
20th Century, A Dictionary of Art Terms and Art
Today are used as standard texts throughout
the world. In Britain he was for many years a
well-known broadcaster, appearing regularly
on the BBC arts discussion programme The
Critics and its successor Critics Forum. His
appearances on these programmes spanned
a period of twenty years. He has written
for many leading British newspapers and
periodicals, among them The Times of London
(where at one time he had a regular column),
the London Evening Standard (whose critic he
was for two years), the New Statesman, the
Spectator, the London Magazine and Encounter.
He currently writes regularly for Art Review,
and also for Index on Censorship. He also writes
for La Vanguardia in Barcelona.
Mr Dominique Nahas
Independent Curator and Critic
Dominique Nahas is an independent curator and critic based in Manhattan. He is
Associate Professor at Pratt Institute where
he teaches critical studies. Mr. Nahas has
curated and co-curated many gallery and
museum exhibitions over the years. He has
been a seminar and critique faculty and visiting artist coordinator of the New York Studio
Residency Program since 1998. Mr. Nahas has
written hundreds of articles and reviews for
a wide variety of art publications such as ArtNews, Flash Art, Art On Paper, New Art Examiner,
Artnet Worldwide, Art Asia-Pacific, New Observations, C, Chelsea Arts, dArt International, and
TRANS among many other periodicals. He
has been referred to and quoted as an expert
in contemporary art in The New York Times
three times in 2001 in conjunction with his
curatorial efforts.
Dr Wang Tao
Senior Lecturer in Chinese Archaeology at
The School of Oriental and African Studies,
University of London
Wang Tao studied at the Yunnan Teachers
University, Kunming and the Postgraduate
School of the Chinese Academy of Arts,
Beijing, before coming to London in 1986. He
obtained his PhD from SOAS in 1993 and has
been teaching there ever since. His research
interests and publications have focused on
traditional and contemporary archaeological
practice in China, oracle bone inscriptions
and Chinese calligraphy.
Dr Eugene Wang
Professor of Asian Art at Harvard University
A native of Jiangsu, China, Eugene
Yuejin Wang studied at Fudan University
in Shanghai (BA 1983; MA 1986), and
subsequently at Harvard University (AM
1990; PhD 1997). His teaching appointment
at Harvard University began in 1997, and
he became the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller
Professor of Asian Art in 2005. His book,
Shaping the Lotus Sutra: Buddhist Visual Culture
in Medieval China (2005) has received the
Academic Achievement Award. He is the art
history associate editor of the Encyclopedia
of Buddhism (New York, 2004). His thirty
or so articles published in The Art Bulletin,
Art History, Critical Inquiry, Res: Journal of
Anthropology and Aesthetics, Public Culture, and
elsewhere, cover a wide range of subjects,
including ancient bronze mirrors, Buddhist
murals and sculptures, reliquaries, scroll
paintings, calligraphy, woodblock prints,
architecture, photography, and films. He has
also translated Roland Barthes Fragments
dun discours amoureux into Chinese, and wrote
the screenplay for a short film, Stony Touch,
selected for screening in the 9th Hawaii
International Film Festival.
183
Artist Biographies
Chen KeZhan
b. 1959, Singapore
Chen KeZhan is
recognised as the
countrys foremost
abstract ink and wash painter. He studied Chinese
traditional painting under Fan Chang Tien from
1975 to 1979 and then left for Hong Kong where he
studied the Lingnan style with Chen Shao-an and
calligraphy with Fung Kang-ho. His subsequent
years in Paris at the Ecole des Beaux Arts from
1983 to 1985 enriched his exposure to western
modernism. He was selected as one of the artists
included in Singapores first entry to the Venice
Biennale in 2001. Chen KeZhans painting presents
a convincing example of how successful the fusion
between western abstraction and contemporary
Chinese ink painting can be, as well as the further
connection between Chinese classical aesthetics
and modern variations.
Chun-yi Lee
b. 1965, Taiwan
184
Fay Ku
b. 1974, Taipei
Fay Ku immigrated
to the United
States at the age of
three. After graduating from Bennington College,
Bennington, VT, with a dual BA in literature
and visual arts, she moved to New York City; in
2006 she graduated from Pratt Institute with a
MS in art history and MFA in studio art. Ku is
one of the brilliant younger generation of Asian
American women whose artistic vision and in
her case, accomplished drawing is directed at
examining the tension between gender issues and
undercurrents of violence and sexual exploitation.
Her seductive yet disturbing depiction of children,
young girls, and animals is her way of exploring
feelings of alienation from both China and America.
Gao Xingjian
185
Gu Gan
Huang Zhiyang
186
Leung
Kui Ting
b. 1945, Guangzhou,
Guangdong
Leung Kui Ting
moved to Hong Kong in 1948 and has held various
teaching positions. In the 1990s he exhibited on
the mainland and widely traveled there. A figure
in Hong Kongs New Ink Painting movement
that grew up around Lui Shou-kwan, Leung has
experimented with many different styles that
Li Xubai
Li Huayi
Jia Youfu
b. 1948, Shanghai
Li Huayi began
studying as a child
and has become
one of the most
distinguished and
internationally recognized Chinese artists of his
generation. From a wealthy family, he was able to
study both the techniques and styles of Chinese
classical paintings as well as European drawing
and painting. In 1982, Li moved to San Francisco
where he earned an MFA at the San Francisco Art
Institute. The expatriate experience reawakened
his interest in the classical Chinese tradition of
landscape painting and his best-known subjects
are misty mountains. Li Huayi creates landscape
paintings that are reminiscent of masterworks
from the Song period (9601279). However, instead
of planning the composition beforehand, Li
applies ink on the paper first, and then allows
the composition to take shape in response to
the density of the ink. This element of chance
brings his work close to late- or post-modernist
imperatives, combined with superlative aesthetic
similarities to traditional landscape painting.
Li Jin
b. 1958, Tianjin
Li Jin is one of the
best-known and most
unorthodox ink painters
in the so-called New
Literati group of ink painters. Before his study in
the Painting Department at the Tianjin Academy
of Fine Arts, where he now teaches, Li studied
dyeing and weaving at the Tianjin Academy
of Arts and Crafts, which partly explains his
Liu Dan
187
Liu Kuo-sung
Liu Qinghe
b. 1961, Tianjin
188
Liu Wei
b. 1965, Beijing
Liu Wei, one of the most
audacious avant-garde artists
of his generation, graduated
from the Printmaking
Department at the Central
Academy of Fine Arts in
1989, and he continues to
live and work in Beijing.
Liu was one of the first
three Chinese artists to be
included in the main exhibition of a Venice
Biennale, in 1995. His versatility as an artist is
remarkable. Liu Weis early paintings, from the
first half of the 1990s, have been characterized
as Cynical Realism, an outgrowth of disillusion
in the post-1989 era; most of these works are
satires of political leaders, military cadres, and
bureaucrats and are accomplished through free
brushstrokes and distorted effects of trompe loeil.
By contrast, since the second half of the 1990s, his
works use splashing and spattering techniques,
including painting wet into wet emphasizing
the messy physicality and impulsive action of
contemporary life.
Lo Ching
Lu Hao
b. 1969, Beijing
Scion of an old Beijing
family of Manchu bannermen, Lu Hao is one of the
brilliant new generation
of artists in todays globalizing Chinese art world.
He was appointed curator of the Chinese Pavilion
for the 53rd Venice Biennale in 2009. Lu is deeply
concerned about the brutal urban redevelopment
of his native city and the loss of everything connected with the life of his childhood courtyard
home. Although he studied Chinese ink painting
at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, Lu
is best known for his works with modern materials such as Plexiglas, used to create models of
major public buildings inhabited with live creatures. He also utilizes his academic training in ink
painting in an alternative approach to express his
interest in architecture and current realities.
Miao Xiaochun
Miao Xiaochun is
recognized as one of
the most creative and
technically sophisticated
photographers in China
today. After attending Nanjing University from
1986 to 1989 he completed a masters degree at the
Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, and in 1995
he went to study at the Kunsthochschule Kassel,
Germany. In 1999 Miao returned to live in Beijing,
where he teaches in the Photography and Digital
Media Department at the Central Academy of Fine
Arts. His sojourn in Germany increased Miaos
awareness of the fragmentation of contemporary
Chinese society as well as imposing a recognition
that neither the recent past of his own youth nor
the classical past of Chinas high antiquity can
ever be retrieved. While using modern technology
to create highly detailed mural-sized photographs
Pan Gongkai
Pan Hsin-hua
189
Qin Feng
Qiu Anxiong
190
Qiu Deshu
b. 1948, Shanghai
Qiu Deshu, one of the
few Chinese artists
to have received
international recognition since the 1980s, studied
traditional ink painting and seal carving when
he was a child. However, the Great Proletarian
Cultural Revolution interrupted his career in art,
and he was sent to work at a plastics factory. In
the late 1970s, Qiu picked up ink painting again
and cofounded the Grass Painting Society (Caocao
huashe), one of Chinas first experimental art
groups of the post-Mao period. In the early 1980s,
he developed his signature style of works called
fissuring (liebian). This is a metaphor for the
artists life and artistic career, both of which have
experienced dramatic disruptions and setbacks. In
these works, he applies vivid colours to xuan paper,
which he tears up; Qiu 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 lifes journey.
Qiu Jie
b. 1961, Shanghai
Qiu Jie started to learn
painting by copying
illustrations of the Red
Guards in newspapers at
the age of ten. In 1981, he
graduated from the School of Decorative Arts in
Shanghai and began to work as an art designer
in the Shanghai Instrument Factory. In 1989,
recommended by two Swiss artists, Qiu Jie
studied multimedia art at the School of Fine
Arts in Geneva. Currently living and working
in China, France, and Switzerland, Qiu uses the
simplest tools graphite pencil and paper to
express his concern about the life experience of
Qiu Zhijie
Tong Yang-tze
b. 1942, Shanghai
Wang Dongling
Wang Jinsong
191
Wang Tiande
b. 1960, Shanghai
Wei Ligang
192
Wei Qingji
Wenda Gu
b. 1955, Shanghai
Wenda Gu moved to New York
in 1987, and has become one of
the highest-profile members of
the Chinese diaspora. Although
studying traditional Chinese
painting, Gu became one of
the leading figures in the New
Wave art movement of the mid1980s, when he utilized the technical skills he
acquired in school for his iconoclastic painting
and calligraphy projects. Ink Valley and White
Water, 1986, exemplifies Gus revolt against the
tyranny of the traditional aesthetics of brush
and ink (bimo) by subverting it. The large-scale
and unconventional composition of the painting
has created a spiritual and surreal world, which
reflects the mentality of the Chinese society and
idealist art of the 1980s, when huge social changes
took place. By combining different character
components, Gu has invented unreadable
characters to investigate the power of the written
word. In most of these works, he places these
powerfully symbolic pseudo-characters in vast
surreal spaces.
Wilson Shieh
Wu Yi
Wucius Wong
Xu Bing
b. 1955, Chongqing
One of the most inventive
and internationally famous
of Chinese artists, Xu Bing
grew up in a scholarly family
on a university campus in
Beijing. From 1975 to 1977,
he was relocated by the government to the
countryside to work on farms and other rural
institutions and this experience has had a strong
impact on his art. He subsequently enrolled in the
printmaking program at the Central Academy of
Fine Arts in Beijing, receiving his BA in 1981 and
his MFA in 1987. In 1990, invited by the University
of Wisconsin-Madison, he moved to the United
States. He then lived in New York before returning,
in 2003, to Beijing, where he currently is vice
president of the Central Academy of Fine Arts. The
thrust of all Xu Bings work, from installation to
calligraphy, is to express his deep skepticism about
the integrity of language as well as the complexity
of national and cultural intercourse.
193
Xu Lei
Yang Jiechang
194
Yang Yanping
Yao Jui-chung
Yuan Jai
b. 1941, Chongqing,
Sichuan
Yuan Jai studied
Chinese painting
at the National
Taiwan Normal University and received her MA
degree from the Catholic University of Leuven in
1966. In 1968 she received her doctorate from the
Royal Institute for the Preservation of Cultural
Artifacts. Yuans early interest in Art Deco, Art
Nouveau, Cubism and Surrealism were fundamental to her later stylistic development. Upon
returning to Taiwan, Yuan Jai worked for decades
in the Department of Antiquities at the National
Palace Museum in Taipei. Her own paintings were
originally inspired by landscapes in thick mineral pigments and often with primitive-looking or
archaistic compositions, in the so-called blue-andgreen style, which were often on display at the
museum. The main pictorial source for her work
has been examples of the master paintings in the
museum, but Yuan Jai has integrated her own very
contemporary structure to create artworks that
have been streamlined into geometric elements of
vibrant colour.
Zeng Shanqing
b. 1932, Beijing
Zeng Shanqing
graduated from the
Central Academy of Fine
Arts, where he studied
under the distinguished painter Xu Beihong
(18961953), whose ideal of combining Chinese ink
painting with European styles of realistic drawing
has deeply influenced Zeng. After finishing his
graduate school in 1952, Zeng taught at the Central
Academy. From that time, Zeng also lectured
in the Department of Architecture at Tsinghua
University; there he met and married his wife, the
painter Yang Yanping. Zengs career was disrupted
by the Cultural Revolution in the mid-1960s, and
he was not able to resume teaching and painting
until 1976. In 1986, both Zeng and his wife went as
fellows to the State University of New York at Stony
Brook, and they have remained on Long Island
ever since. Like his teacher, Xu Beihong, Zeng
Shanqings best-known subject is the horse. His
powerful brushwork and dynamic compositional
rhythms embody his profound sympathy for the
values of political liberty.
Zeng Xiaojun
b. 1954, Beijing
195
Zhang Yu
b. 1959, Tianjin
Zheng Chongbin
b. 1961, Shanghai
196
Zhu Daoping
b. 1949, Huangyan,
Zhejiang
Zhu Daoping
graduated from
the Fine Arts Department of Nanjing Art
Academy in 1977. In 1973, Zhus paintings
were first exhibited in the annual national
art exhibition, and since 1998 he has been
the Nanjing Institute of Calligraphy and
Paintings president. In 2004, he received the
first prestigious Huang Binhong Award, named
for the leading literati painter of the early
20th century. Having grown up near Nanjing,
Zhus art is closely related to the New Jinling
(Nanjing) School, painters deeply influenced by
Fu Baoshi (19041965), who revivified the local
landscape tradition of southern China and the
Yangtze River. While the dotted surfaces in his
paintings are reminiscent of the style of earlier
Nanjing masters such as Mei Qing (16231697)
and Shitao (1642c.1707), Zhu goes further by
rediscovering and emphasizing the relationship
between dots, lines, and the pictorial surface:
he has created a modern aesthetic that is still
rooted in the long Chinese tradition of painting.
Index of Artists
Chen KeZhan
48, 50
Chun-yi Lee (Li Junyi) 40
Fay Ku (Gu Yonghui)
118
Gao Xingjian
120
Gu Gan
92
Huang Zhiyang
160
Jia Youfu
132, 134
Leung Kui Ting
150
(Liang Juting)
Li Huayi
32, 34
Li Jin
128, 130
Li Xubai
140
Liu Dan
74, 76, 78
Liu Kuo-sung
106, 108, 110
(Liu Guosong)
Liu Qinghe
52, 54
Liu Wei
68
Lo Ching (Luo Qing)
80, 82
Lu Hao
102, 104
Miao Xiaochun
66
Pan Gongkai
144
Pan Hsin-hua
152
(Pan Xinhua)
Qin Feng
94, 96, 98
Qiu Anxiong
46
Qiu Deshu
168, 170
Qiu Jie
Qiu Zhijie
Tong Yang-tze
(Dong Yangzi)
Wang Dongling
Wang Jinsong
Wang Tiande
Wei Ligang
Wei Qingji
Wenda Gu
Wilson Shieh
Wu Yi
Wucius Wong
(Wang Wuxie)
Xu Bing
Xu Lei
Yang Jiechang
Yang Yanping
Yao Jui-chung
Yuan Jai (Yuan Zhan)
Zeng Shanqing
Zeng Xiaojun
Zhang Chun Hong
Zhang Yu
Zheng Chongbin
Zhu Daoping
88, 90
122, 124, 126
154
84, 86
136, 138
100
146, 148
164
172, 174, 176
36, 38
70, 72
116
42, 44
64
156, 158
166
162
56
62
112, 114
178
58
142
60
197
Bibliography
Sullivan, Michael. Art and Artists of TwentiethCentury China. Berkeley and Los Angeles:
University of California Press, 1996
198
INDIVIDUAL ARTISTS
Alternative Visions: Liu Dan. New York: Takashimaya,
1993
Bessire, Mark H.C., ed. Wenda Gu: Art from Middle
Kingdom to Biological Millennium. Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press, 2003
Doran, Valerie C., ed. Dsui Hua, Tseng Yuho. Hong
Kong: Hanart TZ Gallery; Tapei: Hanart
Gallery, 1992
199
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
For their kind permission to loan works in their collections:
Paul and Annette Beyle, Paris; Qiu Anxiong,
Shanghai; Eskenazi Ltd, London; Michael Goedhuis,
London; Wenda Gu, Shanghai; John Hindemith,
London; Kuni Ishida, Toyko; Chen KeZhan, Singapore;
Elizabeth Ku, Shanghai; Nanshun Shanfang Collection,
Singapore; Olenska Collection, Geneva; Origo
Foundation, Zurich; Private Collection; Wilson Shieh,
Hong Kong; Mr & Mrs Wilbur Ross, New York
We thank our generous sponsors:
Anonymous
Hashem Khosrovani
Mr & Mrs Wilbur Ross