Ocula Conversation Sandrine Colard on the 6th Lubumbashi Biennale The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the largest Francophone nation in Africa with vast resources and nearly 80 million inhabitants, is a place where commodities play a vital role in the national economy and the country's significance on the world stage. This is the context from which the 6th Lubumbashi Biennale (24 October–24 November...
Ocula Report From 20 to 21 July 2019, Artspace Sydney held a two-day symposium that brought artists in conversation with leading curators, writers, activists, academics, diplomats, and journalists from across Asia. The symposium was the final chapter of the 52 ARTISTS 52 ACTIONS exhibition, publication, website, and Instagram project. Instigated and...
Ocula News We Are Our Infrastructure, Argues Newly Announced Shanghai Biennale Chief Curator 13 December 2019 The Power Station of Art will make a fitting location for Andrés Jaque, whose past projects expose the politics concealed by buried pipes and managed cables. Spanish architect, writer, and curator Andrés Jaque has been named the chief curator of the 13th Shanghai Biennale, which will take place at the Power Station of Art (PSA) from 13 November...
Ocula Insight Hans Hartung and Art Informel at Mazzoleni London (1 October 2019-18 January 2020) presents key works by the French-German painter while highlighting his connection with artists active in Paris during the 50s and 60s. In this video, writer and historian Alan Montgomery discusses Hartung's practice and its legacy. Born in Leipzig in 1904, Hans...
Xu Jianguo, referred to stylistically as Da Diaozi ("Hue Cathcher"), was born in Shanghai in 1951. Straddling the artistic traditions of both Eastern abstract brushwork and Western colour sensibility, he melds both techniques to create works that push the boundaries of contemporary art. Xu's unique medium, the integration of rice paper with sumi ink and watercolour with canvas, acrylics and oil paints, testifies to his cross-cultural heritage.
Read MoreAs a youth, Xu studied classical painting and calligraphy under the scholar Ye Zhizhao, a researcher at the Shanghai Literature and History Research Institute. Xu obtained a Bachelors of Arts from the Shanghai Academy of Theater in 1976 and moved to the United States in 1984 to pursue an M.F.A from Bard College. Over the following thirty years, he has developed his artistic career, exploring multi-media disciplines, from his studio in New York City.
The China Pavilion featured a solo show of Xu Jianguo's The New Vista of Shanghai for the 2010 Shanghai Expo. From 2010, a solo exhibition sponsored by the US Missions travelled to prominent museums in China, including the Beijing Capital Museum (Fall 2010), Shanghai Art Museum (Spring 2011), Guangdong Provincial Museum (Spring 2012) and National Museum of China (Autumn 2013). His works have been exhibited in the Brooklyn Museum, Smith College, Boston Museum College, and other institutions across the United States. Alisan Fine Arts has been working with Xu since 2016 and included his works at the Art Basel Hong Kong 2016 as well as Art 021 Shanghai last year.
Text courtesy Alisan Fine Arts.
