Link to Post:
http://danielgalas.blogspot.com/2012/08/my-new-favorite-artist-wu-guanzhong.html
Daniel Galas blogs about the work of Wu Guanzhong, recently on view in the exhibition Revolutionary Ink: The Paintings of Wu Guanzhong at the Asia Society, New York.
"What is so striking about Guanzhong's work is that it is so fresh, simple, modern, and ancient. It is amazing how he has transformed traditional Asian art practices into modern masterpieces without being self conscious or straining too hard to do so. Wu's art effortlessly switches back and forth from impeccable draftsmanship to total abstraction... Wu Guanzhong's art has a very calming and refreshing effect and it demonstrates the possibility of an expert representational painter successfully integrating abstraction."
Link to Post:
http://brooklynrail.org/2012/08/artseen/avant-garde-ink-in-chinabeyond-pop-and-expressionism
After viewing the recent exhibition Vaulting Limits with works by Cao Jigang, Lin Yan, Wei Jia, Xiao Bing, and Yuan Zuo at the Tenri Cultural Institute, New York, Robert C. Morgan reflects on the development of ink painting among contemporary Chinese painters.
Morgan writes "I am taken by the fact that many artists are seemingly less concerned with Western formulas, Pop and Expressionism among them, and are focusing instead on developing ways of working with more traditional materials including ink, brushes, and xuan paper. Some Western observers have misconstrued this revival as regressive, which I believe is incorrect. Rather, many contemporary Chinese ink and brush painters are striving to rediscover their own language and, in doing so, reinvent the vanishing medium by bringing it back into the foreground of a renewed, present-day cultural awareness."
Link to Post:
http://thesilo.raphaelrubinstein.com/artists/suh
Raphael Rubinstein looks at the work of South Korean artist Suh Se-ok. Rubinstein notes that Suk's "late 1950s-early 1960s paintings... anticipate the radical deconstruction of painting" that was to come later in the west. "Suh’s intertwined formations oscillate between representation and sheer mark-making."
Where Clouds Disperse: Ink Paintings by Suh Se-ok was on view at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston from January 27 - April 20, 2008.
