2010-2012: Su Xiaobai Solo Exhibition

The Tina Keng Gallery is delighted to present Xiaobai Su 2010-2012, on view from October 6 to November 11 (Opening reception: October 6, 4:30-7pm). Xiaobai Su has been preparing for this solo exhibition since his last exhibition Black on Redat the Tina Keng Gallery in 2010. As a point of departure, the title of the exhibition reflects the artist’s wish to continue to exhibit under the format of presenting works from multiple years, while also a review of what Su has done in the past 2-3 years, displayed in the expansive space of the Tina Keng Gallery. 

Xiaobai Su often cites the different lineages of his education as fundamental to his work—gradually amassing techniques, expressions, and knowledge from the Beijing Central Academy of Fine Arts, and ridding himself of those garnered techniques at the Düsseldorf Academy of Fine Arts. The act of addition and subtraction is ever so present in his work, as Su fills a segment of a wooden board with colored lacquer, and then overlays it with linen to produce a new form, repeatedly smearing, painting over, applying and covering the same surface, keeping the composition in a constant state of movement and expansion, while moving it along from simple to rich, and back to simple again, stopping only at the right phase. The imaginative and expressive vocabulary of abstract language has provided Xiaobai Su a variety of new possibilities, with the artist’s experiments with new materials and a variation in presentation, producing works such as Expandable Boundaries (2011) and Open Scroll(2011). What is concealed with extreme care within abstract painting is exactly what Su intends to convey.

Xiaobai Su

Xiaobai Su was born in Wuhan, China (b. 1949), and currently lives and works in Shanghai, China. Su studied at Beijing Central Academy of Fine Arts (1987), and subsequently at the Düsseldorf Academy of Fine Arts (1992), studying with art masters such as Konrad Klapheck, Gerard Richter, and Markus Lupertz. Su has participated in numerous important exhibitions in China and abroad, including Dynasty of Colours(2009), Langen Foundation, Nuess and ZDF, Mainz, Germany; Kao Gong Ji: Solo Exhibition of Su Xiaobai(2008), Today Art Museum, Beijing, China; Intangible Greats: New Paintings of Su Xiaobai Su(2007) at the Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai, China.