Venue: Galleries 101A, 108, and 109, The Art Institute of Chicago ( 111 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago, IL 60603, United States )
Details of the Exhibition
The Art Institute of Chicago | Visitor Information
The Art Institute of Chicago has joined forces with the Art Museum of The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) to co-present an exhibition of the legendary Hong Kong artist Lui Shou-kwan (1919 – 1975). The exhibition "Ink Play: Paintings by Lui Shou-kwan", at the Art Institute of Chicago, will run until 16 July 2023. Dr Tao Wang, Pritzker Chair of the Arts of Asia at the Art Institute of Chicago, and Professor Josh Yiu, Director of the Art Museum of CUHK are co-curators of the exhibition, and some of Lui’s artworks have been selected from the Art Museum of CUHK for the exhibition.
As the first retrospective of the pioneering Chinese ink artist in a major American museum, which has a renowned collection of modern art that covers all major European and American movements of the 20th century, "Ink Play: Paintings by Lui Shou-kwan" provides an alternative narrative concerning the development of modern art that is couched in Chinese aesthetics and philosophy.
Featuring 37 works dated from 1957 – 1974, a prolific period for the artist that led to multiple solo exhibitions in Britain and group exhibitions in other countries, the exhibition presents Lui Shou-kwan’s imaginative depictions of Hong Kong, reinterpretations of classical masterpieces and meditative Zen paintings. Seen together with masterpieces by Cézanne, Van Gogh, Renoir, Picasso, Magritte, Pollock, de Kooning, Clyfford Still, and other influential artists whose works are housed by this 143-year-old museum, the exhibition prompts meaningful dialogue and visual comparisons between Chinese and Western modernism.
Having influenced generations of modern artists in Hong Kong and beyond, Lui Shou-kwan has become a focal point of art historical studies and exhibitions in recent years. A retrospective exhibition at the National Art Museum of China in 2018 revealed his impact on mainland Chinese artists. The current exhibition in Chicago demonstrates Hong Kong’s full-fledged emergence as an international art hub, and it marks the commitment of CUHK, which celebrates the university’s 60th anniversary this year, to promoting the arts through academic collaborations worldwide.
Support for this exhibition is provided by Alisan Fine Arts, American Friends of the Shanghai Museum, the family of Lui Shou-kwan, Lawrence Chu, Whang Shang Ying, Jerry Yang, and the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in New York.
