Frieze London 2021: Main Galleries

After more than a year of an ongoing global pandemic, Frieze London finally unveils its very first physical art fair since the Covid outbreak. Honored to be one of the only two Greater Chinese representatives among the blue-chip galleries that show at the fair, the Tina Keng Gallery is pleased to present Wu Dayu (1903–1988), Su Xiaobai (b. 1949), Chiang Yomei (b. 1961), and Su Meng-Hung (b. 1976). Their diverse body of work showcases contemporary artistic explorations by Greater Chinese artists in reinterpreting traditional cultural symbolism. Unraveling the strata of history and the symbolism of artistic media, their works grapple with two-dimensional imagery and abstract space. The spirit of brush and ink, and Eastern philosophies that permeate the practices of these artists respond to the transcultural context of contemporary art through a gaze at the culture that cradled their artistic intuition.

-
Wu Dayu (1903–1988)

In the early 20^th century when diverse modern art movements thrived, Wu Dayu went to Paris — the art hub where avant-garde artists from all over the world gathered — and immersed himself in Impressionism, Cubism, and Fauvism. Fusing color theories with expressions of form, Chinese calligraphy with literati painting, Wu Dayu evinced a fusion of shixiang(Dynamic Expressionism), light and color, tone and hue, which profoundly influenced a generation of disciples who later became iconic abstract painters such as Zao Wou-Ki, Chu Teh-Chun, and Wu Guanzhong, and helped shape the face of postwar Eastern abstract art that concurred with its Western counterpart. Hence, Wu Dayu is considered as the forefather of Chinese abstract art.

select exhibition     chronicle

Su Xiaobai (b. 1949)

Born in 1949 in Wuhan, China, Su Xiaobai currently lives and works in Shanghai and Düsseldorf. He attended Beijing’s Central Academy of Fine Arts in 1985, and was later awarded a German cultural and art scholarship to participate in a graduate program offered by the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in 1987. Under the guidance of Konrad Klapheck, Gerhard Richter, and Markus Lupertz, he strived to break away from the skills he mastered in Beijing, and later developed a visual language rich in personal experience, life observation, and abstract symbols.

The artist’s effort to conjure abstraction through Chinese lacquer epitomizes a cross-cultural dialogue. Experienced as a mirror of time, the administration of texture and materiality in Su’s painting educes a sculpturesque serenity in a fortuitous resonance with the wabi-sabi philosophy — namely a worldview centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection. His employment of lacquer infuses a contemporaneity into a traditional medium rich with history, transmitting a subtle visual warmth in a painterly practice characterized by light and shadow. The artist paints layers of vibrantly colored lacquer in a purely structural and balanced composition. The seemingly arbitrary, yet meticulously deliberate handling of visual forms reveals the artist’s pursuit of aesthetic depth.

Su has exhibited internationally, including Beneath a descending moon, breathing, Tina Keng Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan (2019); And there’s nothing I can do, Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art, Hyogo, Japan (2015), Art Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany (2018); The Armory Show, Piers 92 & 94, New York, U.S.A. (2018); Infinite Blue, Brooklyn Museum, New York, U.S.A. (2018); The World Is Yours, as Well as Ours, White Cube Mason’s Yard, London, U.K. (2016); Grand Immensity, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taichung, Taiwan (2013); The Dynasty of Colours, Langen Foundation, Neuss, Germany (2009); Kao Gong Ji, Today Art Museum, Beijing, China (2008); and Intangible Greats, Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai, China (2007).

select exhibition     select video

Chiang Yomei (b. 1961)

Of Chinese, Russian, and German descent, Chiang Yomei was deeply influenced by diverse Chinese and Western cultures from a young age. Departing for the United States for further studies in the late 1970s, she subsequently settled in London. To delve into Chiang Yomei’s practice through Buddhist philosophy, cognitive psychology, and quantum entanglement theory is simultaneously the most straightforward and most arduous way. The artist meditates during her art making process. The resulting work attests to such process where she examines the nuanced relationship between life, perception, and memory, and reflects on the intrinsic nature of being and emptiness, ultimately cultivating the mind.

Chiang has exhibited internationally, including Doors of Perception, Tina Keng Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan (2018); Chiang Yomei: Other Realms, Sotheby’s Hong Kong Gallery, Hong Kong (2016); and The Hidden Heart, Gallery Elena Shchukina, London, U.K. (2015). Her works are housed in private and public collections across Europe and Asia.

select exhibition     select video

Su Meng-Hung (b. 1976)

Su Meng-Hung graduated from the Changhua National University of Education, Taiwan, and Goldsmiths College, University of London, and received his PhD from the Tainan National University of the Arts, Taiwan.

The artist works across such mediums as painting, silkscreen print, installation, and sculpture, in an attempt to transform traditional Chinese imagery into a visual vocabulary of grandiose icons. Driven by an intent to ridicule while popularizing social codes, he often adapts elements of fauna and flora from the work of late Qing-dynasty painters in his satirizing of the taste of the aristocracy and literati

Inspired by Ms. Coco Chanel’s collection of ebony lacquer screens, Su’s 2019 series “Xiang Nai Er” takes famous Chinese paintings as templates, fusing abstract expressionism with automatism manifested in splashed ink landscape. In re-contextualizing the still life paintings, flower and bird paintings, and the erotic paintings referenced in his work, he dissociates them from their original cultural significance. Rearranged into a flamboyant scene, these visual narratives confront the viewer with their sensational presence.

Su’s notable solo exhibitions include: Self-exoticism, Tina Keng Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan (2021); Xiang Nai Er, Tina Keng Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan (2019); A Painter of the Empire, Tina Keng Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan (2016); Poppy, Golden Lotus, Dopamine, Tina Keng Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan (2012); Unreachable Blooming, IT Park, Taipei, Taiwan (2007); and Kai Dao Tu Mi, Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei, Taiwan (2003). He has also participated in international exhibitions and biennials, including Dialogue on Printmaking — The Taiwan-U.S. Exchange Exhibition, Taiwan Academy, Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in New York, New York, U.S. (2016); Taipei Biennial, Taiwan (2014); Busan Biennale, Korea (2008); and Jam — Cultural Congestions in Contemporary Asian Art, South Hill Park Art Centre, Bracknell, U.K. (2009).

select exhibition     select video