Ink Art: Past As Present In Contemporary China
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
1000 Fifth Avenue
New York, New York 10028
December 11 – April 6
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is featuring a collection of work by thirty-five artists in various different media – paintings, calligraphy, photographs, woodblock prints, video, and sculpture – all created in the past three decades. This will be the first major exhibition of Chinese contemporary art ever presented by the Metropolitan.
The exhibition – Ink Art: Past As Present In Contemporary China – will be centered around China’s artistic past that is being transformed into new modes of expression. “Contemporary ink art” is a concept that is defined not only by its temporality but also its spirit. For thousands of years, ink has been the principal medium of painting and calligraphy in China. In the 1960’s, a movement was formed within the art community giving attention to the eclectic work. Many modern-day artists are trying to find new ways to create a sense of individualism when it comes to ink art. Many new techniques have been developed to modernize the craft such as software created to augment ink paintings.
The Metropolitan will be showcasing a selection of work from Chinese artists spanning from 1800 to present day. The collection will be organized into four parts: The Written Word, New Landscapes, Abstraction, and Beyond the Brush. Work by artists such as Ai Weiwei, Gu Wenda, Liu Dan, Qiu Anxiong, Wang Dongline, Xu Bing, Yang Jiechang, Zhang Yu, and many others will be shown starting December 11th and running until April 6th, 2014.
In addition to the exhibition, the Museum will present a full-day public convivial discussion with leading scholars of Chinese contemporary art on February 21st and a Sunday at the Met program on February 23rd, as well as gallery talks, a studio workshop, an artist demonstration of calligraphy techniques, and a teen program called Ink Experiments.
Ink Art: Past as Present in Contemporary China is curated by Maxwell K. Hearn.
