Iconology of Life
September 20 – December 1, 2024
We are proud to present Iconology of Life, the first solo exhibition for the Guangdong-born visual artist Lao Tongli (b. 1982). Lao Tongli is a contemporary artist working in the early gongbi or “meticulous brush” mode of painting—a tradition which can trace its roots to Imperial painting of the Song Dynasty (960-1279) and religious mural painting dating as far back as the the Six Dynasties period (220-589). Unlike China’s literati painting tradition which emphasized landscape painting in ink monochrome, gongbi painting often depicted moral, spiritual and religious narratives using vibrant mineral pigments such as azurite, malachite, lapis lazuli, lead, cobalt and cinnabar. Having entered China as early as the 3rd century along the Silk Road from Central Asia, gongbi painting facilitated cross-cultural artistic exchange between China, Central Asia, the Middle East, East Asia and Europe over the ensuing millenia. As a result, gongbi painting shares many of the same materials and techniques found in European fresco painting, Persian or South Asian miniature painting, Tibetan thanka painting, and Japanese Nihonga painting.
Having mastered gongbi painting materials and methods at the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, Lao Tongli spent two years, following his graduation in 2006, working in France and Germany for international contemporary artist Yang Jiechang, himself a master of gongbi painting technique. There he developed a novel approach to gongbi painting that reformulates both the technique and the visual semiotics of this early transnational art form for use in our international, contemporary art discourse today.
In expanding the visual semiotics of gongbi painting, Lao starts with a simple philosophical premise that universal or trans-cultural human meaning emerges first as personal, subjective experience. Using this mode of thinking, he has over the past decade been systematically building a lexicon of images or xiang to resurrect the natural and organic world view of living systems that connects the early Taoists and Song Neo-Confucians with modern, international thinkers. This exhibition features three series—The Desire of Libido (2013–2018), Above the Horizon · Sky (2018–present), and Self and the Others (2021–present)—in which Lao develops the yixiang or ‘idea-images’ of Heart, Forest, Sky, and Self-Others, exploring their interconnected relationships.
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RECENTLY CLOSED EXHIBIT
Observing My Distant Self: Kang Chunhui
May 25 – August 30, 2024
Observing My Distant Self: Kang Chunhui marks the artist’s premiere solo exhibition at INKstudio, offering an immersive journey into a crucial juncture in her artistic development. The exhibition unfolds in two distinct sections: “Observing My Distant Self” and “Undeniably Me.”
Occupying the entirety of our ground floor, Observing My Distant Self 73°40′E～96°23′E 34°25′N～48°10′N, 2019-2023, is an expansive eight-part multimedia project responding to Kang’s childhood dream in the form of a metaphorical pilgrimage to the Western Regions. Eight 6’6”-long videos place an aspect of Kang’s artistic practice in spatial dialog with a location in Xinjiang selected by Kang for its historical, sociological, and cultural significance. On her pilgrimage Kang makes eight stops: the Kumtag Desert, Lop Nur, Bosten Lake, Tarim Poplar Forest, Kuqa Old Town, Tianshan Grand Canyon, Kizilgaha Beacon, and the Kizil Caves. Throughout her journey, Kang explores the boundaries between place, history, memory, self and creativity, conceiving them not as rigid territories but as expansive areas for exploration, exchange, synthesis and transformation.
On our third floor, Kang debuts new works in her Post-Modern synthesis of historical Central and East-Asian polychrome painting styles. In Kang’s latest works in her signature Sumeru series, she continues her alchemical exploration of mineral and organic red pigments through the form and metaphysical theme of the fold. In The Hidden Protagonist No. 2, 2022-2024, she transcends the boundaries between Imperial bird-and-flower and religious figure painting while exploring resonances between Eastern and Western mythologies. In The Hidden Protagonist: Mount Fuchun she transgresses the traditional boundary between xieyi or “calligraphically expressive” and gongbi or “meticulously descriptive” painting while interrogating the dialogical relationship between self and history through the landscape.
Kang Chunhui is a female visual artist born in Urumqi and educated in Seoul who has entered the hallowed grounds of the literati landscape—populated since its inception exclusively by men—to assert herself as a contemporary woman artist with an uncompromising, distinctly feminine vision. She describes her approach as a form of homage, not to the masters of the past, but to her own emotional connection to nature itself. In the end, Kang Chunhui, undeniably herself, ends up her own “hidden protagonist.”
To learn more and view works, click here.
About the Gallery
INKstudio is an art gallery based in Beijing and New York. Its mission is to present Chinese experimental ink as a distinctive contribution to contemporary transnational art-making in a closely-curated exhibition program supported by in-depth critical analysis, scholarly exchange, bilingual publishing, and multimedia production. INKstudio’s program encompasses Postwar and contemporary artists from China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Korea and Japan including Bingyi, Chang Yahon, Chen Haiyan, Cheng Yen-ping, Dai Guangyu, He Yunchang, Hung Fai, Huang Zhiyang, Inoue Yuichi, Jennifer Wen Ma, Jeong Gwang Hee, Kang Chunhui, Kim Jong-ku, Lee In, Lao Tongli, Li Jin, Li Huasheng, Lim Hyun-lak, Lim Ok-sang, Liu Dan, Peng Kanglong, Ethan Su Huang-sheng, Tao Aimin, Tseng Chien-ying, Wai Pong-yu, Wang Dongling, Wang Tiande, Wei Ligang, Xu Bing, Yang Jiechang and Zheng Chongbin and exhibits works of diverse media, including painting, calligraphy, sculpture, installation, performance, photography, and video. Since its inception in 2012, INKstudio has regularly appeared at art fairs such as the Armory Show (New York), Art Basel Hong Kong, and West Bund Art & Design (Shanghai) and placed works into major public collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Freer-Sackler Galleries, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Art Institute of Chicago, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Brooklyn Museum, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Asian Art Museum of San Francisco and M+ Museum, Hong Kong.
Dr. Britta Erickson, INKstudio’s Artistic Director, drives all aspects of its programming and scholarly activities. An independent scholar and curator living in Palo Alto, California, she has curated major exhibitions at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Washington, D.C. (Word Play: Contemporary Art by Xu Bing) and the Cantor Center for Visual Arts, Stanford (On the Edge: Contemporary Chinese Artists Encounter the West). In 2007 she co-curated the Chengdu Biennial, which focused on ink art, and in 2010 she was a contributing curator for Shanghai: Art of the City (Asian Art Museum, San Francisco). Dr. Erickson has written numerous books, articles, and essays on contemporary Chinese art. She has produced a series of short films about ink painting entitled The Enduring Passion for Ink. Ms. Erickson is on the advisory boards of The Ink Society (Hong Kong) and Three Shadows Photography Art Centre (Beijing), as well as the editorial boards of Yishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art and ART Asia Pacific. In 2006 she was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to conduct research in Beijing on the Chinese contemporary art market. Dr. Erickson received her Ph. D. in Chinese Art History from Stanford University.
