WHAT: Zheng Chongbin’s "Black Wall/ White Space"
WHEN: Through Feb 26th
WHERE: Pao Galleries, 4F, Hong Kong Arts Centre, 2 Harbour Road, Wanchai, Hong Kong
WHY THIS SHOW MATTERS:
Pearl Lam, daughter of the late Hong Kong tycoon Lim Por-yen, was a promoter of Chinese art long before the country’s contemporary artists began breaking auction records and collectors and dealers came flocking. Her Shanghai base — originally named Contrasts Gallery but recently re-badged Pearl Lam Fine Art — has been distinguished by its serious curatorial approach, pioneering Chinese abstract art and contemporary ink painting and promoting international artistic exchange.
Long the doyenne of the Shanghai art scene Lam has nonetheless all the time kept an eye on her home town of Hong Kong. Confident that the harbor city is now rising to the cultural opportunity provided by its position as Asia’s art market hub, she has decided to open a space here this year.
On May 15, the eve of Art HK, Lam will open an eponymous space in Hong Kong’s historic Pedder Building, the central city landmark that is already home to Gagosian, Ben Brown Fine Arts and Hanart TZ. Details of the opening exhibition are still under wraps, but by way of a soft opening, and to give the city a taste of the kind of work she is planning to show, Lam is now presenting an exhibition of abstract ink work by Shanghai-born US-based artist Zheng Chongbin at the Pao Galleries in the Hong Kong Arts Centre.
Zheng’s large panels of ink soaked paper on wood engage vividly with the open, double-leveled gallery space where they hang. Standing out amongst the works is “Folded Triangle,” its unusual shape embodying the architectural and sculptural qualities of the artist’s aesthetic. There is plasticity to the work that gives it strength and belies its previous incarnation as delicate ink, water, and paper.
The triptych “Trace” embraces the same linear strength but in the vertical. With it Zheng has created a cinematic image of vast walls of water falling and eventually pooling in the white of the gallery walls that become, by extension, a continuation of the work. The continuity in palette and medium allows the show to hold a narrative. While each being unique Zheng's works share a singular individual voice.
Zheng makes good use of the abstract expressionist artist’s privilege of using layers of pigment to release landscapes of depth and texture, but he also displays a clear connection with traditional Chinese ink painting. His simple combination of ink, white acrylic and a fixing agent, however, challenges tradition and how we understand the logic of ink and its characteristics as a modern medium.
At the heart of the exhibition lies “Four Defined Squared by Me,” four massive panels that lie flush against the largest wall on the lower level of the gallery. The huge Rothko-esque squares of white sit like four mammoth ice cubes dropped in a bucket of blackened soot. They capture the moment when water meets dust.
The surface of the paper itself is soft and ethereal, folding and creasing under the weight of the ink, contrasting in strength with its monochromatic pallet. The ink evolves, growing and mutating in a symbiosis with the paper. It is a partnership. Rather than sitting on the surface of the paper the ink soaks through to both sides, forever uniting the two, creating something new. A painting in the round.
Pearl Lam Gallery will open in Hong Kong’s Pedder Building in Central on May 15, 2012. She is also planning to open a gallery in Singapore in the Spring of 2013.