Cultural Conjugate[1] Effect - Contemporary Asia from a Pan-Western Perspective
"The best way to know yourself is through the other."
-- Gao Minglu[2]
Contemporary (postmodern) art originated in the west and was mainly developed in the Chinese art circle towards the end of the 1980s. At the other end of the cultural axis, the creators from Asia disassociated themselves from a perspective “of the other” through contemporary art theories constructed by Europe and America, re-examining and integrating the core of their thousand-year-long culture.
Nowadays, contemporary Chinese art deconstructed from a pan-western perspective is no longer only about differentiating visual expressions, but also creating an independent conjugate effect that vibrates with the core of western philosophy and art in the two-way exchange of the increasing internationalization of eastern and western art.
The mirror-like cultural contrast between the east and the west is not binary - sometimes they are disarranged; sometimes they overlap, always complementing each other harmoniously through subtle multi-directional interactions, allowing the horizon of contemporary art to expand beyond the boundaries of a single cultural system.
Tina Keng gallery sorts through the historical dimensions of Chinese contemporary art for their first invited exhibition at the Frieze New York Art Fair - starting from Wu Dayu who combines eastern and western painting into creations of Dynamic Expressionism, Yun Gee’s modernism painting explorations in the early twentieth century, continuing on to Li lan, Zhang Hongtu, Tony Wong and etc who transforms traditional Chinese culture elements into narrative paintings, and Su Xiao-Bai’s contemporary classic sculpture that derives from refining historic symbol and inspired by traditional Chinese lacquer art.
Through the exploration of hundred-year long Chinese art, this exhibition aims to create a clear and long-lasting context of modern and contemporary Chinese art that both inherits and disintegrates the classics, while looking back at the original intersection of western contemporary art and Chinese art through an artistic expression that integrates eastern and western cultural philosophy, weaving more possibilities for the future development of art.
Wu Dayu
Inthe early 20th 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 the art of 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 post-war Eastern abstract art that concurred with its Western counterpart. Wu’s work has been the subject of closer examination and many retrospective exhibitions, including at the Shanghai Art Museum (1995 and 2003) and the National Museum of History in Taipei (1996).
Yun Gee
Born in 1906 in Guandong, China. Yun Gee moved to America at the age of 15. In 1925, he entered the California Academy of Art to study painting under Gottardo Piazzoni and Otis Oldfield, the later who became his good friend. His first solo show was held at the Modern Gallery in San Francisco in 1926, where he met his first patrons, Prince and Princess Achille Murat, who encouraged him to go to France. He had several solo shows during his stay in Paris, and many of his works were selected to the Salon d'Automne, Salon des Independants, and Salon des Tuileries. In 1932, Gee was invited by the Museum of Modern Art in New York to take part in an exhibition of murals. In 1945, he suffered a serious mental depression and remained very ill for two years. He passed away at the age of 57. In 1968, the Robert Scholkoph Gallery in New York held a retrospective of his works, reviving his memory after he had been forgotten for many years.
Li-lan
Li-lan invites viewers to the visual space that she has delicately constructed. The images in her work come from a wide range of cross-cultural sources. Eastern and Western culture subjects blend naturally in her work, co-existing in balance and in harmony, without conflicts, which reflects her life experience in multiple cultures. Li-lan is the daughter of renowned overseas Chinese artist Yun Gee.
Li-lan has exhibited extensively in the USA and internationally, especially in Taiwan and Japan. Her work is in major public and private collections all over the world, including the Weatherspoon Art Museum in Greensboro, NC, the Parrish Museum in Southampton, NY, the William Benton Museum of Art in Storrs, CT, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the Ohara Museum of Art in Kurashiki, Japan, and the Sezon Museum of Modern Art in Karuizawa, Japan. Currently lives and works in New York and East Hampton.
Zhang Hongtu
Zhang Hongtu was born and raised in a devoted Chinese Muslim family. Zhang entered the Central Academy of Arts and Crafts in Beijing in 1964 and graduated in 1969, but due to unrest during the Cultural Revolution, remained at the school until 1973. In 1980 he went to the Mogao Caves in Dunhuang, Gansu Provine, to study wall paintings, which left a lasting influence on his art practice. He moved to New York in 1982, and received the painting prize from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation in 1991.
Inspired by Mao Zedong, in 1987 Zhang Hongtu retouched the man on the Quaker Oats carton to closely resemble Mao in the work Quaker Oats Mao (1987), and other works such as Chairmen Mao (1989), in a satiric deconstruction predating China’s Political Pop art movement, which became very well-known in the early 1990s. In recent years, Zhang Hontu has shifted his focus to “shan shui.” Having worked on the Repaint Chinese Shan Shui series since 1998, he has consciously emulated the painting styles of such masters as Paul Cézanne (1839–1906), Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) and Claude Monet (1840-1926) for well over a decade, such that he has created his own distinguished style by juxtaposing the East and West.
He has exhibited internationally, including Zhang Hongtu, Queens Museum, New York, USA (2015); After Picasso: 80 Contemporary Artists, Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio, USA (2015); Picasso in Contemporary Art, The Hall for Contemporary Art, Deichtorhallen, Hamburg, Germany (2015); and Post-Picasso: Contemporary Reactions, Museu Picasso, Barcelona, Spain (2014). Zhang’s work is housed in many important institutions and private collections, such as the National Museum of Art, Beijing, China; Guangzhou Art Museum, Guangzhou, China; Bronx Museum of the Arts, NY; Princeton University Art Museum, NJ, among many others.
Tony Wong
Born in in Guangdong, China. Tony Wong moved to Hong Kong in 1960, and immigrated to the United States to begin his studies at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago in 1966. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and later obtained his Master of Arts and Master of Fine Arts in painting at the University of California, Berkeley in 1973 and 1975, respectively. From 1975 to 1977, Wong taught as an Assistant Professor of Art at Illinois State University in Normal, Illinois before relocating to New York to work professionally as an artist.
His figurative works blend images from American folklore with familiar stories of traditional Chinese mythology his grandmother recounted during his childhood. The idea of “the narrative”remained a consistent fundamental concept from his earlier work in the 1970s throughout the remainder of his artistic career. Wong’s distinctly symbolic, unavoidably mysterious works utilize the ambiguous space between reality and the realm of dreams to suggest a story that is allusively universal through the power of imagery.
Tony Wong has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions internationally since his first one-man exhibition was held in San Francisco, California in 1974, including at Hong Kong City Hall, Hong Kong (1965); The Art Institute of Chicago Museum, Illinois (1972); Collage and Assemblage in California at the Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art, California (1975); The Sense of Scale at the Oakland Museum, California (1977); the Municipal Art Gallery, Athens, Greece (1985); the Exhibition Hall Pablo Ruiz Picasso, Madrid, Spain (1985); Point of View at the Rockland Center for the Arts, New York (1991); and Popping Up: Revisiting the Relationship between 2D & 3D at the Hong Kong Art Centre, Hong Kong (2010). Wong was chosen to represent the United States in Paradise Lost/Paradise Regained: American Visions of the New Decade, curated by Marcia Tucker and presented in the United States Pavilion at the 41st Venice Biennale in Venice, Italy in 1984. Wong has been the recipient of various grants and awards, including the C.A.P.S. Fellowship (1981-1982); the Yaddo Fellowship (1983 and 1990); and the National Endowment for the Arts (1983-1984).
Su Xiaobai
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. Su Xiaobai’s oscillation between Chinese lacquer and painting makes his work a natural representation for a cross-cultural experience. The contrast of layers and texture within his works prompts a sense of depth and texture. Rather than overtly depicting objects, his work embodies the concept of existence, thereby posing a philosophical discourse on our daily lives through the language of visual art.
Su Xiaobai has exhibited internationally, including 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); and Su Xiaobai, Tina Keng Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan (2016, 2014, 2012).