Zhang Hongtu’s Mai Dang Lao from the Brooklyn Museum Collection featured on NYC – ARTS


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Zhang Hongtu in ART AND CHINA AFTER 1989: THEATER OF THE WORLD

International artist Zhang Hongtu debuts first solo Midwest show at K-State
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If Bison Can Dream by Zhang Hongtu


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Zhang Hongtu in ART AND CHINA AFTER 1989: THEATER OF THE WORLD

International artist Zhang Hongtu debuts first solo Midwest show at K-State
Categories: news
Tags: Zhang Hongtu
LOVE DIFFERENCE











LOVE DIFFERENCE
May 15 – June 15, 2021
Eric Brown
“My recent paintings were made during a pandemic. Making them was a daily meditative practice. It was like keeping a journal. French philosopher Roland Barthes draws an analogy between text and textiles (“text” comes from the Latin texere, to weave). Through a repetition of mark-making, my paintings appear woven. They are not painted to look like textile. Their appearance is a byproduct of the painting process. The completed painting is a record of my experience making it. The eye follows “threads” of paint, their accumulation creating a larger whole. My new work is paradoxical: slow yet fast, precise yet open, deliberate yet intuitive. I am freer for having made them.”
Janet Taylor Pickett
“My Blackness is a declarative statement in my work. There are wonderful discarded objects brought home by my father and botanical prints my mother found from various second hand stores. Makers of things and tellers of stories surrounded me. In the late 1960’s and early 1970’ in the midst of sociopolitical activities, I began to formulate an aesthetic language, a visual synergy. The symbolism of the African American quilt, the pejorative images of the watermelon became part of my cryptology.”
Zhang Hongtu
…In Memory of Tseng Kwong Chi (1991) is a photo series that looked to the work of one of Zhang’s contemporaries, the Hong Kong-born performance artist Tseng Kwong Chi, who died of AIDS in 1990. Appropriating Tseng’s photographs, Zhang used the work of his friend to further extrapolate upon the mechanisms by which iconography constructs identity and how artistic intervention can disrupt the language of power. Created for the 1991 exhibition Dismantling Invisibility; Asia and Pacific Island Artists Respond to the AIDS Crisis, Zhang’s work selected fifteen photographs from Tseng’s acclaimed self-portrait series East Meets West (also known as the Expeditionary Self-Portraits, 1979-89) and reconfigured them into photo collages using his familiar epoxy technique. In these photos, Tseng performed the role of “ambiguous ambassador” and posited himself the stereotypical tourist sites (the Eiffel Tower, the Grand Canyon, the Hollywood sign) while dressed in a Mao suit. The series was a subversive yet ludic exploration of cultural identity, perception, and the status of the individual amid the monumental. In Zhang’s reworking of these photos, he cut out the figure of his close friend and colleague, leaving a ghostly silhouette in his absence. The removal of Tseng’s body next to the famous profiles of monuments and natural wonders created a displacement that was not only a deeply sentimental tribute to a dear friend, but, in the words of Zhang, “dismantled” the imagery further, disrupting historical continuity…
“Art and China After 1989, Theater of the World”
Guggenheim 2017
Page 237
https://www.guggenheim.org/exhibition/art-and-china-after-1989-theater-of-the-world
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Zhang Hongtu in ART AND CHINA AFTER 1989: THEATER OF THE WORLD

International artist Zhang Hongtu debuts first solo Midwest show at K-State
Categories: exhibitions
MORE THAN ONE WAY HOME


The Staircase Group, 2001
Oil on canvas with wooden step
108H x x 54Wx 13D in. (274.32H x 124.46W x 33.02D cm)

Homeward 1, 2020
Oil on wood
8 inch diameter (20.32 cm diameter)
&
Sophie Matisse
Origin of the World, 2003
Oil on canvas with velvet casing
18.5 x 22.5 in. (46.99 x 57.15 cm)

Nude Descending a Staircase, 2012
Oil on canvas
48 x 24 in. (121.92 x 60.96 cm)
&
Janet Taylor Pickett
She Has Agency, 2020
Acrylic and collage on canvas
40 x 40 in. (101.6 x 101.6 cm)

Ritual, 2003
Acrylic and collage on canvas
36 x 36 in. (91.44 x 91.44 cm)
&
Janet Taylor Pickett
Mellon Dress, 2001
Acrylic and collage on canvas
60 x 40 in. (152.4 x 101.6 cm)

Charms & Inspirations, 2015
Sculpture with indigo blue glass bottles with messages inside, acrylic, collage,
and twine on shaped Arches paper over glass bottle
15 H x 10.5 W x 5 D in. (38.1H x 26.67 W x 12.7D cm)

Still image #29 from video version of Van Gogh/Bodhidharma,
a set of 39 Ink Paintings on paper, 2007-2014
approx. 35 x 25 in (88.9 x 63.5 cm) each

Still image #31 from video version of Van Gogh/Bodhidharma,
a set of 39 Ink Paintings on paper, 2007-2014
approx. 35 x 25 in (88.9 x 63.5 cm) each

Still image #26 from video version of Van Gogh/Bodhidharma
a set of 39 Ink Paintings on paper, 2007-2014
approx. 35 x 25 in (88.9 x 63.5 cm) each
MORE THAN ONE WAY HOME
October 10 - November 24, 2020
Baahng Gallery celebrates its 2020 reopening with More Than One Way Home, an exhibition featuring the gallery’s represented artists: Sophie Matisse, Janet Taylor Pickett, and Zhang Hongtu. The exhibition offers a glimpse into the struggles of the artists and their coming to terms with their individual challenges. Sophie, the great-granddaughter of Henri Matisse and step-granddaughter of Marcel Duchamp, is an American oil painter working in New York City; Janet is an African American multi-media artist working on the West Coast; Hongtu is a Muslim Chinese artist who has been working in New York since 1982. The exhibition acknowledges and affirms that home, for these artists, is not situated in nostalgia. Rather, through a cyclical process of revisitation, they find home in both the present and future potential. More Than One Way Home follows a journey through each artist’s rite of passage in life and is a compelling visualization of distinct, individual expressive forms. Baahng Gallery is open Monday thru Friday, noon to 3pm, and by appointment.
Selected works from Sophie Matisse’s ‘Be Back in Five Minutes’ series are strategically installed in the gallery. Returning to renowned paintings by Gustave Courbet, Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, Charles Wilson Peale through her unique lens, she appropriates and embellishes upon, or subtracts from, recognizable works from art history. The interplay between absence and presence in these haunting paintings is evocative. Featured as well is her most recent painting, ‘Homeward 1’. In this contemplative autobiographical tondo completed during the pandemic quarantine, the artist positions an errant chess piece peering out over a window ledge into the hazy verdant void, invoking solitude and the uncertain but hopeful future ahead. More Than One Home highlights some of the most intriguing works from her celebrated series and is her inaugural show at Baahng Gallery commemorating her gallery representation.
‘Mappings of Memory’, a survey showcasing Janet Taylor Picket’s works, introduces selected paintings, collages, sculptures, and quilts from the 1990s through 2020. Her experiential work chronicles her journey as an African American woman, daughter, mother, and artist. Images drawn from art history, Africa, America and Europe, past and present, coexist in her often-ornate collages and paintings, defying linear timeframes and logical geographic or cultural relationships. The inclusion of the shipping crates in which the works were transported to the gallery adds a poignant historical dimension to the installation, referencing both her personal odyssey and that of her ancestors. The suggestive titles of the works on view reflect her creative vision: ‘Spirit Catchers', ‘Hot House', 'Melon Dress’, 'Exotica Botanica’, ‘Thoughtful Resilience’, and ‘She Has An Agency,’ the latter produced in 2020. These works constitute the artist’s confessional narrative circling back with newly found wisdom in life as well as in art. More Than One Way Home inaugurates Pickett’s representation with Baahng Gallery and presents her first New York exhibition.
Zhang Hongtu’s video, ‘Van Gogh/Bodhidharma’, is the centerpiece of his installation. This mesmerizing video production builds on his seven-year project (2007 – 2014), a set of 39 ink paintings that rework Van Gogh’s 39 extant self-portrait oil paintings in the style of classical Zen portraits of Bodhidharma. Revealed in both this video and the original endeavor upon which it was based are parallels in the lives and aesthetics of Zhang and Van Gogh. The artist compels viewers in both iterations of this project to reconsider Van Gogh’s fascination with Asian aesthetics, registering a more philosophical connection and inner resonance between the European post-impressionist artist and the East. Reflecting upon this project, Zhang expresses his approach as one that ‘dares to mate a horse with an ox’. Framing the video are wall texts quoting provocative passages from Van Gogh’s letters to his brother Theo and to Paul Gauguin. More Than One Way Home marks the launch of Zhang’s visionary ‘Van Gogh/Bodhidharma Project’—a quixotic effort to unite his ink paintings with the original painted portraits—and announces his official gallery representation with Baahng Gallery.
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Zhang Hongtu in ART AND CHINA AFTER 1989: THEATER OF THE WORLD

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Categories: exhibitions
About the Bison Series by Zhang Hongtu and Four Poems by Mai Mang published at CUNY FORUM 8

Bison and Cranes, After the Emperor Huizong of Song 907 Years Later
2019
Oil and acrylic on canvas
70 X 67 in (177.8 x 170.18 cm)

Bison, Untitled
2019
Oil, acrylic and mixed media on canvas mounted on gator board
54 X 83 in. (137.16 x 210.82 cm)

Morning
2019
Oil, acrylic and mixed media on canvas mounted on gator board
62 X48 in. (157.48 x 121.92 cm)
Corona Conversations: EAST & WEST
CUNY FORUM Volume 8:1 (2020)
An Online International Edition
Each month in May, June & July 2020, CUNY FORUM will feature essays; analysis; literary, artistic, and poetic responses; conversations and community resources around the global COVID-19 pandemic from comparative Asian American and Asian perspectives. Contributing writers hail from, or originate in the U.S., Peoples Republic of China, Taiwan, Philippines, India, Sri Lanka, Macao, etc.
Source:
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Zhang Hongtu in ART AND CHINA AFTER 1989: THEATER OF THE WORLD

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Zhang Hongtu at “Godzilla vs. The Art World: 1990-2001”, MOCA NYC

In Memory of Tseng Kwong Chi, 1991
Photocopy and epoxy resin
14 × 11 in. each (34.9 × 28 cm each)

Long Live Chairman Mao Series
1987-1995
Acrylic on Quaker Oats boxes
Actual size
Zhang Hongtu’s works will be shown at the exhibition, Godzilla vs. The Art World: 1990-2001, at The Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA) in New York City: May 13 – September 12, 2021
.
Press Release at the MOCA NYC.
Godzilla vs. The Art World: 1990-2001
May 13 – September 12, 2021
Godzilla vs. The Art World: 1990-2001 will examine the work of Godzilla: Asian American Art Network, which launched a generation of young artists and curators. It catalyzed a needed political and aesthetic conversation at a critical time in the histories of alternative arts, “multiculturalist” politics, and the shifting Asian diaspora. And it produced a body of exhibitions, collaborative projects, critical writing, and connections that reshaped the contours of American art.
Godzilla: Asian American Art Network was founded by curator Margo Machida and artists Bing Lee and Ken Chu in 1990 in New York, taking the name of the feared Japanese pop monster. Their goal was to “establish a dynamic forum” to “foster information exchange, mutual support, documentation, and networking among the expanding numbers of Asian American visual artists all across the United States.”
The founders chose not to incorporate as a not-for-profit, instead creating a roving, mostly-volunteer, flexible organization. Membership, though never formalized by dues, quickly expanded: after Godzilla’s famed open letter to the Whitney Museum, over 200 artists registered — a racially, aesthetically, and politically diverse group. The members of Godzilla gathered to show each other’s work in “slide slams,” challenged institutionalized racism in the arts, wrote arts criticism, threw parties, co-organized exhibitions, debated politics, and spread the word about artist opportunities.
This exhibition will be the first ever to focus on the art and legacy of Godzilla: Asian American Art Network. It will include key artworks, original artifacts, historical ephemera and documentation to tell the story of this seminal group.
Godzilla: Asian American Art Network will also be examined within a larger narrative, from the politicized formation of Asian American identity in the ’70s to the resurgence of arts collectives today. In a time when arts institutions still struggle to be inclusive, and many young artists see collectivism and organizing as inseparable from their arts practice, Godzilla offers a needed story of artists taking their fate into their own hands.
The exhibition will be co-curated by Herb Tam, MOCA’s Curator and Director of Exhibitions, and Ryan Lee Wong, guest curator.
Godzilla vs. The Art World: 1990-2001
May 13 – September 12, 2021
The Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA), New York
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Zhang Hongtu’s “Mai Dang Lao” in the permanent collection at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

Mai Dang Lao
2002
Cast bronze, Set of 4 pcs
Actual size
Edition of 10 plus 1AP
– Baahng Gallery congratulates Zhang Hongtu on inclusion of an edition of his Mai Dang Lao, 2002, in the permanent collection at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.
https://www.mbam.qc.ca/en/collections/arts-of-one-world/
– An edition of Zhang Hongtu‘s Mai Dang Lao, 2002, is currently on view at the Arts of Asia in Brooklyn Museum.
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International artist Zhang Hongtu debuts first solo Midwest show at K-State
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Artist Talk with Zhang Hongtu on Van Gogh/Bodhidharma




Saturday, 1-3 pm, November 16, 2019
at Baahng Gallery
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ZHANG HONGTU: I DARE TO MATE A HORSE WITH AN OX


Van Gogh-Bodhidharma
2007- 2014
Detail view, a set of 39 ink paintings
Sumi ink on hand-made paper from Japan and China
Dimension Varies

Van Gogh-Bodhidharma
2007- 2014
Detail view, a set of 39 ink paintings
Sumi ink on hand-made paper from Japan and China
Dimension Varies

Six-Pack of Kekou-kele
2002
a set of 6 pcs with caps
Jingdezhen porcelain with underglaze blue designs
Actual size

Zodiac Figures
2002
a set of 12 pcs, Earthenware with sancai glaze
Detail view

Mai Dang Lao
2002
Cast bronze, Set of 4 pcs
Actual size
Edition of 10 plus 1AP

Bada! Bada!!-11, #2
2011
Oil and mixed media on paper mounted on panel
74 X 68 inch

Walking Monkey
2016
Mixed media and oil on paper mounted on canvas
68 X 74 inch
Baahng Gallery is pleased to present I DARE TO MATE A HORSE WITH AN OX, the gallery’s inaugural solo exhibition of the highly celebrated works of Zhang Hongtu, a Chinese-born, New York-based artist and forerunner of the Chinese “Political Pop” art movement. The exhibition will be on view at the gallery from September 27 through November 8, with an opening reception with the artist to be held on Friday, September 27, from 6 to 8 pm.
To dare to mate a horse with an ox is to dare to break down the zygotic barriers that maintain the separation of species. This notion of doing the impossible and breaking down barriers has been the lodestar of Zhang Hongtu’s life and five decade-long career. As a Muslim outsider in China, then as a Chinese exile in America, through his works, he has continually sought to disintegrate dividing walls in culture, politics, and time. His works involve thoughtful juxtapositions of critique with humor, and the appropriation of images of authority figures and cultural icons, for the purpose of deflating the power of such formidably divisive influences. While each work captures and contemplates a multi-layered discourse on competing ideas, the exhibition as a whole unexpectedly proposes universality and relevancy.
I DARE TO MATE A HORSE WITH AN OX highlights selected works from Zhang’s series Shansui, Political Pop, and Van Gogh/Bodhidharma. Van Gogh/Bodhidharma consists of 39 ink paintings created over the course of seven years, 2007-2014. They are the Van Gogh “self-portraits” merged into the style of the classical Zen portraits of Buddhist monk Bodhidharma. His morphing of Van Gogh and Bodhidharma into one is a remarkable display of the artist’s masterful ability to dissolve distinctions between two icons. Also on view are: Bada! Bada!!-11, #2, 2011, a lopsided map of China facing a mob of angry fish; Walking Monkey, 2016, a warning on a disrupted ecosystem; Landscape, Out of the Focus, 2011, a questioning of the assumption of near-sightedness; Long Live Chairman Mao Series, 1987-1995; Zodiac Figures, 2002; Mai Dang Lao, 2002; and Six-Pack of Kekou-Kele, 2002.
Zhang Hongtu was born in Gansu, China, in 1943. He attended the Central Academy of Arts and Crafts in Beijing 1964-1969, moved to New York in 1982, and attended Art Students League 1982-1986. Selected solo exhibitions include at Queens Museum, Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art, Kansas, the Connecticut College Charles E. Shain Library, The Bronx Museum of Fine Arts, Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, Taiwan. Selected group exhibitions at Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museu Picasso, Spain, Brooklyn Museum, Wexner Center for the Arts, Ohio, Princeton University Art Museum, Israel Museum, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark, El Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Cuba, The Hall for Contemporary Art, Hamburg, Germany, Kunst und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bonn, Germany, and Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taiwan.
ZHANG HONGTU
I DARE TO MATE A HORSE WITH AN OX
September 27 – November 16, 2019
Opening reception with the artist
6-8pm, Friday September 27
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Zhang Hongtu in ART AND CHINA AFTER 1989: THEATER OF THE WORLD

International artist Zhang Hongtu debuts first solo Midwest show at K-State
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