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New York, USA
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March 18 through April 17 Marlborough Chelsea, 211 West 19th Street, New York Wang Keping, a sculptor, and Jeng Jundian, a painter, have each developed a style of their own. Of course they see and feel differently, however they share with us a new vision of the human experience. The theme of Body & Nature rises from the work of these artists. Wang sculpts bodies and forms that "appear in the wood", Jeng draws and paints the landscapes he sees in front of his eyes. They both constantly shift between the concepts of "Nature of the Body" and "Body of Nature." Wang Keping, a self-taught artist, was a prominent member of Stars, the avant-garde movement that began with an unauthorized exhibition in 1979 during the Beijing Spring in China. He sculpts wood in powerful shapes reflecting his instinct and his culture. He has total confidence in his art and lives the life of a classical sculptor, working hard and alone at translating his vision or "listening to what the wood tells him." He has acquired an intimate knowledge of the material, its fibres, knots and purpose. Michael Sullivan, former professor of Oriental Art at Stanford University, commented that "his instinctive feeling for sculptural form is so powerful that his figures seem almost to burst through their skin." Wang's forms have a monumental quality seldom encountered in contemporary sculpture. Wings (ash, 19.5 in.) evokes a primitive goddess of fertility and could very well be 12 feet high. Ardor (wild cherry, 17.6 in.) has the strength of an antique Venus discovered under the plough. Wang darkens his sculptures by superficially burning the wood, he then burnishes and seals the "skin" he has so produced. Some elements of his work, as in Caress, are both reminiscent of Chinese culture and expressive of eroticism, but the form always remains an essence of the subject. Wang's sculpture may be found in the following collections, among others: Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, England; Collections de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France; Fondation Guerlain d'art Contemporain, Paris, France; Modern Art Museum, Taiwan; Museum of Asian Contemporary Art, Fukuoka, Japan and The Olympic Sculpture Park, Seoul, Korea. Jeng Jundian, an artist quite unknown to the international public, has not exhibited since 1998. For the past five years he has developed an entirely new and masterful technique for representation. Jeng utilizes cross-hatching to define the shape, the distance and the tonality of the subject. Although his colored landscapes are tied to the oldest traditions of China, their format - he works in series - and the systematic study of a given landscape demonstrate his contemporary approach. Looking at these works for the first time we may tangle ourselves in a useless search for western or eastern references. In fact Jeng has studied western painting in school and during his trips abroad, but he has never ceased to practice calligraphy. These crossed lines produce a unique vibrancy and liveliness and from a distance they define a "realistic" vision as in the round shape of a cloud or the shadow on the foliage. The closer we get to the work the more its definition fades away and the cloud appears as a few strokes of colour playing with the light. Jeng declines to make a choice in theory between abstraction and representation. His path is one of self-accomplishment, beauty and balance. Wang and Jeng reflect on themselves and the world around them. They are sincere and express an absolute passion for their art. They both embody the great promise of Chinese modern and contemporary art. An illustrated catalogue will be available at the time of the exhibition. Marlborough Chelsea is located at 211 West 19th Street, New York and is open to the public from Tuesday through Saturday, 10:00 to 5:30. Marlborough Fine Art was founded in London in 1946 by Frank Lloyd and Harry Fischer, and the gallery conducted its first exhibition in 1947. During the1950's, Marlborough developed an international client base and embraced a new generation of post-World War II artists including Henry Moore, Francis Bacon, Graham Sutherland and Ben Nicholson. In 1960, a second gallery was opened in Rome, and in 1963 the New York gallery was founded. |