One is an old master painter whose "Chineseness" has long been embraced by the French; one is a maverick ink painter who plays with the traditions of the urbane art form; the third is a multi-disciplinary artist who sees ink as the best medium of social critique. The unlikely trio -- Zao Wu-chi (
If there is any common denominator for the 18 ink paintings currently on show at Lin and Keng Gallery (
The title of the exhibition implies the artists' marginalized status in the contemporary-art scene. "We are like the leaders of minor tribes," Ni, the organizer of the show, said in an interview with the Taipei Times. According to Ni, in the past 10 years ink painting has been associated with mainland Chinese art traditions and stigmatized as "un-Taiwanese." Politics thus relegated the medium to the margins in Taiwan.
PHOTO COURTESY OF LIN AND KENG GALLERY
"That's probably why in Taiwan's major art events, like the Taipei Biennial, we hardly ever see ink works," Ni said.
Neither has the art form attracted much critical attention. While Very Fun Park, one of last year's contemporary-art extravaganzas, has inspired not a few essays by graduate students of art, nothing of the sort has happened to ink paintings.
Inexplicable for Ni, all this is beginning to change. Earlier this year, several major colleges held international seminars on Chinese ink paintings and the museums like Hong Si (鴻禧), Guan Du (關渡) and the National Palace Museum (故宮) have held large-scale ink-painting exhibitions. The usually installation-oriented Main Trend Art Space (大趨勢) is currently showing ink paintings by college students. All this happened in just a few months.
PHOTO COURTESY OF LIN AND KENG GALLERY
We may not be sure if the burgeoning trend is a nostalgic reaction against the critics and curators' over-indulgence of multi-media works and installations. For Yu and Ni, who have devoted many years to ink paintings, the vagaries of popular taste have no effect on their choice of medium.
In Taiwan's Westernized art education, Yu had no inclination for Chinese ink until he went abroad. "When you're in a foreign country, you will begin searching for the connection between yourself and your culture. You cannot possibly adopt some other culture, because, for a culture to make sense to you, it has to relate to your ancestors and your surroundings," he said.
Yu's new works on long scrolls are a continuation of his humorous landscapes inspired by Taoist meditation. Works like Without a Sound (
Well-known for his ridicule of Taiwan's political milieu and environmental decline, Ni deals with the ills of the environment brought on by thoughtless over-development in his Taiwanese Landscapes series. The mountains and fields in Paradise Lost (失樂園) seem ironed out while the stature of a construction worker seems unnervingly out of proportion. Meandering Over a Thousand Miles' (綿延千里) dark panel turns a familiar view of Taiwanese rice paddy into a crumbling and scattering barren earth.
Dealing with these unconventional subjects for Chinese ink paintings, Ni said that "the black and white of ink conveys a unique gravity and somberness. I have the same documentary purpose in mind as some photographers do when they insist on using black and white film," he said.
As the youngest of the three artists, Ni's idea of ink painting may indicate the medium's future direction in Taiwan's art scene.
"For the new generation, which has no nationalistic burden, ink is just a medium. We apply ink to our works simply because the quality of ink suits a particular subject," said Hsu Wan-chen (
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