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| Rice Paper Boat |
India-Art/Asia
Hong Kong, Dec 2 Chinese contemporary artist Zhu
Jinshi, who experiments with diverse mediums and materials to create avant garde
art inspired by reality and world schools of aesthetic thoughts, will be the attraction
of an exhibition, “28 Chinese” at the Rubell Family Collection opening December
4, 2013, to coincide with Art Basel at Miami in United States.
He has sculpted a monumental
12-metre walk-in installation of a boat — using bamboo, cotton and 8,000 sheets
of Xuan (rice) paper — to create synergies and new links between materials,
art, history and journeys of cultures across the globe. It is the Boat’s first
journey to America.
Artist Jinshi describes the “Boat”
as “a symbolic journey”. The multiple layers of Xuan paper walls gently block
out the world outside as each viewer moves through the length of the paper tunnel
of the boat. The Xuan paper is considered to be the first-material ever
invented specifically to write and paint—steeped in history and tradition.
The installation is significant
because of the artist’s cultural background. Zhu was a participant in the
underground and literary activity during the cultural revolution — and emerged in
the late 1970s as a member of the ground-breaking “Stars (Xingxing)” — an avant
garde artists’ group along with artists like Al Weiwei and Ma Desheng.
After fleeing China in the 1980s,
Zhu was exposed to German expressionism in Berlin. He combined the 21st
century contemporary European expressionism with the speed and spontaneity of
his “xie yi” ink and brush paintings. Zhu
will also exhibit “a series of heavily-impastoed” oil paintings, for which the
artist has been recognized internationally.
Zhu’s sculptural installation and
his abstract work express a rigorous dedication to material — and his lifelong
commitment to pure abstract form. The artist’s large-scale canvases, laden with
multi-coloured oils, create a dialogue between western and Chinese abstraction,
referring to works by artists like Wassily Kandinsky and the western tradition
of abstract expressionism — which emerged from the US in the late 1960’s.
Pearl Lam, the founder of the
Hong-Kong based Pearl Lam Galleries said his gallery had supported and worked
Zhu Jinshi for many years. “The selected works which will be on show at Miami
trace the relationship between China and west— the core of the galleries’
mission. From the heavily impastoed canvasses laden with oil paint to the
delicate yet dominating ‘Boat’— viewers will experience new insights into the
Chinese culture,” Pearl Lam said.
Jinshi, born in Beijing in 1954 began
to paint abstract canvases after working as an artist-in-residency in Germany
and teaching in the department of architecture at the Berlin Technical
University. He showed his works at the “Stars (Xing Xing)” group exhibition –
the first-ever contemporary art exhibition after the cultural revolution.
When China was led by Mao Zedong between
1950s and 1970s, the new visual encouraged by the Communist power was “part of
a broader national programme of modernization”. Artists were told to make art
that reflected the revolutionary spirit of the time— for the people. A paper
published by the Asia Society as a introduction to an exhibition, “Art and
China’s Revolution” in 2008-2009 says “oil painting in a socialist realist
style replaced ink painting — which had previously been one of the most revered
art forms in China. Revolutionary heroes such as workers, soldiers and peasants
replaced traditional subjects such as landscapes, birds and flowers”.
Respected older artists, who ink
paintings were in demand pre-cultural revolution — were looked down upon as “examples
of bourgeois decadence”. Many artists saw their works destroyed. Some of them
were arrested and found their works criticized in “black painting” exhibitions,
the paper says. A section of committed creative expressionists went underground.
Zhu belongs to this group of artists, who chose stay out of the public eye
during this “tumultuous” period.
Zhu international repertoire is
formidable. He has exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions including “Chinese
Contemporary Abstract, 1980s until Present: MINDMAP (2012)” at Pearl Lam
Galleries, Hong Kong, “Power and Jiangshan (2008)” at Arario Gallery in Beijing
and “On the Road (2002)” at Prague City Museum, Czech Republic.
Zhu’s work is represented in many
private and public collections across the globe, including Canada where his
rice paper installation “The Tao” of Xuan Paper (1997) is on permanent display
at the Vancouver Art Gallery. In May 2013, to coincide with the first edition
of Art Basel in Hong Kong, Zhu presented his first Hong Kong solo show at Pearl
Lam Galleries.
--Staff Writer
artsinfocus.webs.com
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