Des rêves! Toujours des rêves! Et plus l’âme est ambitieuse et délicate, plus les rêves l’éloignent du possible. Chaque homme porte en lui sa dose d’opium naturel, incessamment secrétée et renouvelée, et, de la naissance à la mort, combien comptons-nous d’heures remplies par la jouissance positive, par l’action réussie et décidée? Vivrons-nous jamais, passerons-nous jamais dans ce tableau qu’a peint mon esprit, ce tableau qui te ressemble?
Based in France since 1984, Won Sou-Yeol was born in a small town on the island of Chejudo in South Korea. This place between land and sea has nurtured her inspiration through the strength of the natural elements, which are to be found in her painting. Her work is imbued with dynamism and power marked by the contrast between black and white, light and shadow. Master of calligraphy, she mixes her technical spontaneity with a large and concentrated gesture. Like a dance where cracks and splashes are created. “I kept my strength. I was not talking to anyone. I was not sleeping. “. The work and the artist are one. Won Sou-Yeol is devoted entirely to her art. At the point that she said that one day, while she was painting, she wanted to look at the clock. Three years had elapsed. Won Sou-Yeol wants to free herself of something that belongs to her. Her work is a weapon of freedom both strong and light. It enables to access the immaterial world that fascinates her. …
Artists Marina Abramovic and Ulay started an intensive love affair in the 1970s, performing out of a van they called home. When they ended their relationship, they decided to walk the Great Wall of China, each from one end, meeting for one last embrace in the middle. That was the last time they saw each other. In 2010, as part of a MoMA retrospective, “The Artist is Present”, Marina shared a minute of silence with each stranger who sat in front of her. On opening night, Ulay arrived without Marina knowing….
Born in Beijing in 1954, Zhu Jinshi moved to Germany in the mid-1980s, and at present lives and works in Beijing. Zhu began painting abstract works in the late 1970s, and participated in the Stars group exhibition, the first avant-garde art exhibition held after the Cultural Revolution. The core of Zhu’s artistic practice is most fittingly characterized by traditional Chinese aesthetics, which emphasises the harmony between human beings and the natural world. Part of the legendary generation of artists who left China in the 1980s, Zhu Jinshi was clearly marked by his move to another country and culture. He used contemporary Western art languages to find the contemporary possibilities in the cultural resources and materials of China. At Exchange Square in Hong Kong, visitors are immediately greeted by Zhu Jinshi’s monumental Boat. Bamboo, cotton and 8,000 sheets of pale white Xuan (rice) paper meticulously hang from the ceiling, forming a spherical tunnel and stopping just before touching the ground. “I used materials, thoughts, and traditions of the East as a tool to go against the …
Bu Hua born in 1973 is a female Chinese artist. In her strong imagery and flat, decorative backgrounds there is a trace of the traditional woodblock prints of the revolutionary period, and also her love of Japanese art and design. Often described as a pioneer of digital animation in China, Bu Hua was one of the first to use animation software in an art context, creating surreal narratives about contemporary life. Her animations and still images often feature a feisty, sassy pigtailed child dressed in the uniform of the Young Pioneers, a Communist Party youth group. A clever combination of innocence and knowing, cuteness and cunning, playfulness and cynical parody through a characteristically crisp graphic style creates an allegory of industrialisation, pollution and militarisation. Her heroine, armed only with a slingshot, takes aim at flocks of white birds which prove, on closer examination, to be military aircraft. More about Bu Hua http://bit.ly/1BAxKsH
Brancusi’s art focused not only on the medium and form of his sculptures, but also on the relationships between his works and the light and space around them. His atelier became the site of groundbreaking experimentation, as he regularly combined and recombined the component parts of individual works and rearranged their placement within groups. The complete ensemble of Brancusi’s White Negress unites the natural elements of stone and wood into an exploration of modern, abstract form, weight, and mass balanced with great lightness and delicacy. More about Constantin Brancusi http://bit.ly/1ugZjOy
Cai Guo-Qiang was born in 1957 in Quanzhou, Fujian Province, China. His father, Cai Ruiqin, was a calligrapher and traditional painter who worked in a bookstore. As a result, Cai Guo-Qiang was exposed early on to Western literature as well as traditional Chinese art forms. As an adolescent and teenager, Cai witnessed the social effects of the Cultural Revolution first-hand, personally participating in demonstrations and parades himself. He grew up in a setting where explosions were common, whether they were the result of cannon blasts or celebratory fireworks. He also “saw gunpowder used in both good ways and bad, in destruction and reconstruction”. It seems that Cai has channeled his experiences and memories through his numerous gunpowder drawings and explosion events. More about Cai Guo-Qiang http://bit.ly/1jl0kT6
Gαlαtēe & Co 