Installation view, Fluid Strength: The Art of Ink

Fluid Strength: The Art of Ink
Closing Saturday, May 3, 2025
65 East 80th Street

There’s still time to experience Fluid Strength: The Art of Ink at Fu Qiumeng Fine Art before it closes May 3! This remarkable group exhibition explores the profound philosophical connotations of water-based ink as a medium, rooted in the Daoist concept of softness, yielding, and resilience. In East Asian art history, water and ink symbolize Yin energy—gentle yet powerful, nourishing and sustaining all life. This principle is vividly expressed in Daoist thought: “Water flows without contention, achieving great deeds by simply being natural.”

Water’s ability to adapt, nurture, and overcome reflects an essential worldview that has shaped Chinese culture, art, and philosophy for centuries. From ancient calligraphy and landscape painting to contemporary expressions, ink art embodies this enduring perspective, flowing across time and geography—from East Asia to the West. By bringing together works from different historical periods and artistic approaches, Fluid Strength highlights how ink art navigates between tradition and innovation, bridging philosophy and artistic practice. Fu Qiumeng Fine Art invites visitors to explore the resilience and adaptability of ink, and its evolving significance across cultures.

In conjunction with the exhibition, they also presented a two-part artist talk series—Ink Art: The Past in the Present and Tradition Across Borders: A Transcultural Exchange—featuring six visionary artists who explore the dynamic relationship between heritage and contemporary expression in Asian and transcultural art. Whether you missed the live sessions or would like to revisit the conversations, you can now stream both events on their website!

To stream the artist talks, click here.

To learn more about the exhibition, click here.