STPI Gallery is pleased to present ‘Zao Wou-Ki: No Boundaries’, an extraordinary selection of over 40 prints, ink works, watercolours and paintings by the late French-Chinese abstract painter, on loan from a private collection. Charting the evolution of Zao Wou-Ki’s illustrious career from 1950s to the early 2000s, this concise retrospective highlights how the artist renewed his art through various forms and influences, unveiling in particular, a lesser-known side of the painter whose printmaking practice reflects his ceaseless creativity and growth. Like his paintings, they display the strength, versatility and development of one who straddled two traditions to produce seminal works of great art historical value and significance.
Notable for having pushed boundaries in his lifelong quest for new artistic forms, Zao’s impressive career spanning decades is marked by an oeuvre that unites the cultures and aesthetic traditions of the Orient and the Occident on a single painterly surface. This synthesis, which caused the critic Wim Toesbosch to contemplate the ambiguous placement of Zao’s visionary and cultural identity – whether one ought to refer to the maestro as “[the] most Western of all Chinese painters…” or more rightly so as “the most Chinese of all Parisian painters,” – distinguishes his prolific body of work, one that stands peerless today in the world of 20th century Chinese contemporary art. As the artist once said, “Everybody is bound by tradition. I am bound by two.” This lifelong narrative of reconciliation across cultural boundaries, between old and new, is foregrounded in the exhibition, and is one that will resonate soundly within the deeper consciousnesses of audiences in Singapore and around the world.
The exhibition will run from 7 July until 27 August 2016 with guided tours every Tuesday (11:30 AM), Thursday (11:30 AM) and Saturday (2:00 PM).
Zao Wou-Ki: No Boundaries
7 July 2016 – 27 July 2016
PUBLIC PROGRAMMES
Special Feature Film: Zao Wou-Ki
9 July, Saturday 3.00PM – 4.00PM
Mid Week Film: The Silence of Rothko
20 July, Wednesday 7.00PM – 8.00PM
“The Handmade Paper & Other Projects”
Talk/Demo by Gordon Koh, Senior Papermaker, STPI Workshop
23 July, Saturday 3.00PM – 4.000PM
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REGULAR GUIDED TOURS
In English
Tuesdays & Thursdays: 11.30AM
Saturdays: 2.00PM
In Japanese
7 August, Saturday 1.00PM
22 August, Monday 11.30PM
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Image © Zao Wou-Ki ProLitteris, Zurich, 2016
