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Water runs deep at Zhang’s exhibition
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WATER means life. Calligraphy artist Zhang Yu is taking a deeper look at water in his latest series in the exhibition, “Fundamental Principal,” underway at Sanshang Contemporary Art Gallery in Hangzhou.
“Chinese calligraphy is the art of water more than the art of ink, and I try to get rid of ink and explore the possibilities of water,” Zhang tells Shanghai Daily.
The artist’s signature works belong to his Fingerprints series — one piece is owned by the King of Monaco. He returns to this concept once again, but this time dips his fingers into water instead of ink. He then presses his wet fingerprints onto rice paper, leaving numerous marks on the soft paper.
Guan Huaibin, dean of the Installation Art Department of the China Academy of Art, believes Zhang has deep thoughts about his current series.
“I think he wants to tell how things connect with each other. The water and fingers connect with the paper, the paper connects with the fingers,” Zhang says. “I believe it has Buddhist meanings.”
The pieces are reminiscent of Robert Ryman’s “Untitled,” a painting almost all white and expected to fetch between US$15 million to US$20 million at an art auction next month.
Zhang is continuing his examination of water in a different, yet related, series.
In one, 100 bowls are placed on a huge piece of paper. Each bowl was filled with tea, which was deliberately spilled during the opening ceremony to create waterlogging under each bowl.
The artist says he likes to observe how the waterlogging changes everyday. At the end of the exhibition, the paper under the bowl will become his latest creation.
Another creation was made during his previous exhibition in Guangdong Province, where he soaked a half-meter-high pile of papers into 10 centimeters of water for the monthlong exhibition. From the big stack of papers, Zhang selected his favorite to display in Hangzhou.
The paper looks blank except for a faint, light-green water stain in the middle. He says the stain is green because the paper is made from plants.
He’s doing the same thing at this exhibition. In a corridor three piles of papers are placed in a square glass jar of water, which is from West Lake.
“I’ve done the experiment several times and different types of water influence the paper in different ways, naturally,” he says. “Soft water, hard water, and polluted water — they work differently.”
Date: Through November 11, 9am-4:30pm
Venue: Sanshang Contemporary Art Gallery, 52 Yan’an Road S.
Tel: (0571) 8782-5633
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