Now Ink at SH Contemporary by Arthub Asia
ArtHub Asia and SH Contemporary proudly dedicate a platform to the works which are connected with the tradition of ink, but in a fresh, new direction. All inspired by the medium of ink and ink painting, the works on view show the complexity and exciting variety of new approaches, as they relate to this tradition while capturing our contemporary lived experience. Video, installation and performances construct a landscape of the new ink wave in China and beyond, taking into consideration its many facets, including its cultural history across the region and the weight of its legacy, its process, its formal and compositional rigor, and its capacity for empathy and emotional sensitivity.
The special Hot Spot is dedicated at SH Contemporary to ink painting inspired works includes artists FX Harsono, the Yangjiang Group (Zheng Guogu, Chen Zaiyan and Sun Qinglin), Jennifer Wen Ma, Bai Yiluo, Chen Qi and Qin Feng.
See below for examples of works included in this year’s Now Ink show:
Monument to the people we’ve conveniently forgotten (I hate you)
Heman Chong
Offset prints on 260 gsm paper, approximately 1 million copies
2008 | 9 x 5.5 cm each
* Special Commissioned Project by Arthub Asia for SH Contemporary
Heman Chong’s work “Monument to the people we’ve conveniently forgotten (I hate you),” is built as an ironic memento of the typical meeting’s gesture of the cards’ exchange. One million black name cards welcome people and literally form the stage on which people will meet, discuss and make business.
Special thanks to the support of Artron, a service of printing, internet, publishing and popularizing art in the production of the name cards.
Who Would Have Expected to Encounter Ni Zhan’s Gentlemen in S-Chanf?
Jennifer Wen Ma | 2011
Chinese ink, plants, soil
* Special Commissioned Project by Arthub Asia for SH Contemporary
Smitten by Chinese ink’s resilience and simultaneous gentleness, Jennifer Wen Ma creates a stunning new installation. Her fragile and poetic three-dimensional tableau vivant, inspired by traditional Chinese landscape, features hand-selected plants, painted black by the artist with kilograms of Chinese mo, in an attempt to create an effect as powerful, if not more, of classic ink painting compositions. As Wen Ma poetically transcends the traditional legacy of ink, her installation allows plants to blossom in time, referring both conceptually and formally to the significant time component of the use of ink in Chinese painting.
Rewriting The Erased
FX Harsano
Installation and performance video
Dimension Variable | 2009
* Special Commissioned Project by Arthub Asia for SH Contemporary in collaboration with Rogueart Made possible thanks to Indonesian Art for International Biennale (IAIB)
Writing in the rain
FX Harsano
Performance video
Video | 2011
* Special Commissioned Project by Arthub Asia for SH Contemporary in collaboration with Rogueart Made possible thanks to Indonesian Art for International Biennale (IAIB)
Respected for his groundbreaking work across different media, with a practice spanning over four decades, FX Harsono explores issues of cultural identity through the practice of Chinese calligraphy, referring to his own experience as an Indonesian citizen of Chinese origin. FX Harsono’s performance/installation is a nostalgic attempt to re-interpret and re-posses his Chinese past, highly symbolized by the action of a formal writing of Chinese Characters.
Song Zhen, Qiu Zhijie and China Academy Fine Art students
Utopia1: Do you still remember the Soviet Union?
* Special Commissioned Project by Arthub Asia for Shcontemporary 2011
Playing with the natural stage that the main hall of the Exhibition Center offers, the artists and the students will inhabit the space with an installation and performance that literally flips the stage perception. The performer hanging from the main hall on the stairs performs with designed instruments by artist Song Zhen, with an improvised symphony directed by the artists.
