Ocula Conversation Pierre Huyghe: The Artist as Director Pierre Huyghe is a producer of spectacular and memorable enigmas, with works that function more like mirages than as objects. Abyssal Plain (2015–ongoing), his contribution to the 2015 Istanbul Biennial, curated by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, was installed on the seabed of the Marmara Sea, some 20 metres below the surface of the water and close to...
Ocula Report MoMA Expansion: Once the Modern, Always the Modern 29 Nov 2019 : Mohammad Salemy for Ocula In the early decades of its existence, New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), founded in 1929, transformed from a philanthropic project modestly housed in a few rooms of the Heckscher Building on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 57th Street, to an alleged operating node in the United States' cultural struggle during the cold war, and one of the...
Ocula Insight | Video 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...
Imagine the mind tuned down to a dormant state, degree zero; then the world would look so clear, so vivid. It would be like having taste buds so sensitive that even a glass of water would taste sharp. Start from the beginning, annihilate the worldly self: then the original self will become truly sensitive.
When I paint I do not think of structure or theme; what I seek is a certain 'flavour'—a rhythm of spirit and energy, so that the soul drifts in the painting, like a shadow of the mind. Everything is flat and calm.
— Qiu Shihua
Hanart TZ Gallery is honoured to present celebrated painter Qiu Shihua's latest solo exhibition, Dawn Light. The opening reception will take place on Friday, 31 August 2018, from 6-8pm, at Hanart TZ Gallery.
One enters Qiu Shihua's paintings as if slipping into the morning mist. Whiteness dominates, shifting in a variety of shades. By pushing the contrast of form and colour to an absolute minimum, even to the point where it can hardly be differentiated, Qiu has changed the act of viewing from an active solicitation to an alert envisioning. Yet, because his faintly painted landscapes cannot be discerned at a glance, it is necessary first to relax the mind before the image in the painting slowly floats into view: in this way a meditative state becomes the prerequisite condition for viewing the work. Gradually the eyes make out the view: the vague fold of trees, and fainter woods afar. Eventually one seems to see, or sense, every detail, down to the play of light on the tufts of grassy fodder. In many of Qiu's paintings the qualities of breath-rhythm (qiyun) and inner vitality (lingdong) are palpable. They give the impression of entering the world at a moment of fullness when its mysteries are about to be revealed: light at daybreak, first darkness at dusk, or the moment when sound breaks the fullness of silence.
— Chang Tsong-Zung
