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Arario Gallery is honored to return to the 7th West Bund Art Fair. Participating for five consecutive years, Arario Gallery will present works by Asian abstract representatives and young artists from China, Korea, and Japan. Alongside these pieces, important works by Dansaekhwa (Korean monochrome painting) artists such as LEE Ufan and KIM Taeho will also be included. New works by CHEN Qiang, an abstract painter from Shanghai, and JING Shijian, a representative artist of multi-dimensional painting, will be on view at West Bund for the very first time.
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Lee Ufan
Correspondence, 1996This work by LEE Ufan is from the "Correspondence" series, which was mainly created in the 1990s. The artist's works can be divided into 3-4 stages.
During the 1960 and 70s, he worked on "From the Line" and "From the Dot". In this stage, the works reveal a repetition of lines and dots relating to meditation and repeated body gestures. The works embody the control of the spirit of the artist, which is related to the traditions of calligraphy in Asia. After this stage, he moved to the "Wind" series which liberates the controlled line in a more expressive way. Until the 1990s, LEE Ufan filled the canvas with multiple brushstrokes; however, he dramatically moved to the more minimal stage of "Correspondence".
In the "Correspondence" series, the repetitive brushstrokes of his previous works disappear. Instead, the surface of his white canvas is replaced by one single brushstroke. The most important concept in this stage is the relationship between that one brushstroke and empty white space: less gesture but with more spiritual intensity and tension in the composition. -
Kohei NAWA
Moment#98, 2016Ballpoint pen ink is repelled by non-absorbent paper and instead of spreading out, contracts into drops. In that instant, the work becomes a sculpture instead of a sketch. The DRAWING series emerged from an exploration of the relationship between paper and ink.
In order to capture a phenomenon that unfolds extemporaneously before my eyes on a support medium, I choose original tools, methods, and formats depending on the sense to be expressed. To produce subtle differences in feel and texture, I adjust the granularity of the pigment, the viscosity of the medium, the angle of the support medium, the airbrush pressure, and the drying process.
A trial-and-error investigation of concepts—cell (in a variety of meanings), organic and inorganic, dot and grid, line and form, ordered and random, amorphousness, etc.—goes on amidst the struggle between image and materiality.
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Kohei NAWA
Flora (Black_VESSEL), 2020Kohei NAWA is one of Japan's leading contemporary artists. As the director of "SANDWICH", a creative platform working across art, design, and architecture, the artist is active in all areas of contemporary art including performance, dance, theatre, sound, and media.
The series VESSEL was made as part of a performance of the same title, in collaboration with choreographer Damien Jalet (b. 1976). Expanding from material to surface, from surface to form, and from form to space, VESSEL also presents Nawa’s persistent endeavor of nearly twenty years in transcending genre limitations of performance, dance, theater, sound, and video, in addition to exploring the potentials of media. Figure sculptures that capture the piercing intensity of human body, and music in which fills and condenses the air around the stage enliven new sensation in the viewer, crossing the limits of cognition and presenting an experience that traverses the boundaries of reason and perception.
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Asami KIYOKAWA
Mythology-Chaos, 2019"Mythology - Chaos" (2019) is a part of the artist's most recent series. The "Mythology" series was founded upon the imagination of the state before human existence, the state of nothingness. The work incorporates print, painting, and embroidery techniques to create an air of delicacy and sensuality, which highlights the artist's motivation behind exploring the origin of life. Located in the center of the work is a woman jumping freely mid-air. As life begins with nature and women, the artist reimagines and reinterprets the mystical powers and mythological symbolism of life through the canvas.
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Introducing media traditionally ascribed to women, such as embroidery and crafts, in the context of contemporary art, KIYOKAWA became recognized for her <Tokyo Monster> series, which incorporates embroidery and street photography from 90s Japanese fashion magazines. The artist continues to expand the horizon of her artistic practice through various collaborative projects from design to photography. -
Kim Taeho
Internal Rhythm 2012-18, 2012KIM Taeho is one of the representative artists of Korean monochrome art, and his repetitive action and progression toward two-dimensional surfaces show a reversion to painterly qualities connecting to the aesthetics of monochromatic painting. The concept of KIM’s work is both constructing and de-constructing. The repeated grid formation, determining thickness, are made up of densely formed masses within a circular structure. As a representative artist of Korean monochrome painting, his particular construction design and color choices can be understood as the result of a certain harmony found within Korean modern art.
His method of scraping and carving away meticulously laid out painting is paradoxical while numerous layers of color are built up. He states: “the process of eliminating emphasizes the structure”; the representative duality that originates from his early period has been transferred and transformed. After examining these works, we see that they reveal his method to be more meaningful because of his method of representation.
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XU Bacheng
永生之岛 | Island of Immortality, 2020As one of the most representative new media artists in China after 80s, XU Bacheng continues to focus on the diverse expressions of different media. He feels that there is a building in his heart, and sometimes he feels the process of making works is like dividing a lot of space in this building, and each space has its specific meaning.
In 2013, he graduated from the Oil Painting Department of the China Academy of Art with master's degree. In 2012, he was awarded the “National Scholarship” by the Ministry of Education. In 2013, he was awarded the “Luo Zhongli Scholarship”. In 2014, the German Bell Art Foundation named him “Best Potential Young Artist”. He currently works as a teacher of China Academy of Art.
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WEN Yipei
反射的风景-No.2 | The Reflected Landscape - No.2, 2019Focusing on the broad theme of “The Space”, WEN Yipei peels off all the orders, functions and relations of spaces. Wen received his bachelor degree in Oil Painting Department of China Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) in 2012 and completed his postgraduate course in the Painting Department of Pratt Institute with a master degree in 2014, currently works and lives in Beijing.
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West Bund Art Fair 2020: Online Viewing Room
Past viewing_room
