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Wei Ligang: Silent Mountains, Meandering Rivers

Exhibition details

Opening / Event Date:
30 September, 2020
Time:
5:30 pm - 7:00 pm
Closing / End Date:
15 January, 2021
Event Category:
, , , ,
Website:
http://alisan.com.hk

October 3rd, 2020 – January 15th, 2021

Private preview: September 30th, 2020 (Wednesday), 5:30pm – 7pm

Alisan Fine Arts is pleased to announce the opening of our third solo exhibition Silent Mountains, Meandering Rivers by internationally renowned contemporary artist Wei Ligang.  Showcasing fifteen of his recent works, the selection focuses on his iconic calligraphy paintings which continue to explore abstraction through the use of his invented Chinese calligraphic script. Together with his ever-popular flower and peacock series, the body of work offers a contemporary take on the classical literati study of poems, flowers and birds. Also included in this exhibition are Wei’s latest abstract paintings based on “Universalism”, a theory that purports truth is beyond secular emotion and religion, highlighting the fact that his paintings have  universal appeal and are beyond cultural boundaries. When talking about this exhibition, Wei says, “It is my hope that the refreshing art forms of flowers, birds, and poems about winding rivers meandering in the mountains can provide a momentary refuge for those living in the hustle and bustle of Hong Kong.”

As early as 2002, Wei had already been recognized as an important propagator of contemporary Chinese calligraphy with the success of the group exhibition “Brushes with Surprise: The Art of Calligraphy in Modern China” held at the British Museum. In the catalogue published in conjunction with the exhibition, Professor Gordon S. Barrass, the curator of the exhibition wrote: “…one way in which Wei Ligang is unique is that he comes from a scientific background. His familiarity with some of the arcane concepts of mathematics has no doubt informed his rigorous efforts to turn Avant-Garde calligraphy into a purely abstract art.” (P. 244)

About the Artist

Wei Ligang, born in 1964 in Datong city, Shanxi Province, China, started learning Chinese opera and calligraphy with his father from early childhood. He studied mathematics at Tianjin Nankai University in 1981, and became a teacher of mathematics after graduation, during which time he began to study Fu Shan (1607-1684, a painter and calligrapher in Ming dynasty and early Qing) calligraphy. In 1991, he graduated from an advanced course at Sha Menghai Calligraphy College in Ningbo, China. He moved to Beijing in 1995 and devoted himself to art creation. As a recipient of the 2005 Asian Cultural Council Fellowship for Visual Art, he went to New York for further study, where he visited various art galleries and studio of the famous American abstract artist, Brice Marden. He established the International Shuxiang Society in Beijing in 2011. Since the 1980s, Wei has had close to a 100 solo and group exhibitions around the world, including New York, London, Sydney, Seoul, Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Xi ‘an, Chengdu, Hong Kong and Taipei. His works are collected by major museums and commercial institutions, including the British Museum, the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle, the Museum of Cernuschi in Paris, Francois-Henri Pinault family in France, Credit Suisse in Switzerland, the National Art Museum of China in Beijing, and National Museum of China, to name a few.

Alisan has worked with Wei Ligang since 2004 and has held two solo exhibitions for him (2006, 2015). The gallery included his works in the Asian Cultural Council Fellows group show in 2011 & 2018; Ink Asia 2015; and at Art Basel Hong Kong (2013, 2015, 2018). In the gallery monograph Alisan Fine Arts Thirty-five Years, Wei wrote, “Alisan was the first gallery that I signed a contract with; it gave me affirmation, energy, and became the first judge of my talent, my first ‘Bo Le’*, the driving force behind my career’s global expansion.” (P.288)

*Bo Le was a horse-tamer and a famous assessor of horses in ancient China. Today, Bo Le is used to refer to a person who is good at discovering and cultivating talents.

Venue

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