“沈忱 1980年代抽象水墨”即将开幕 | 今格空间 GINKGO SPACE

沈忱 1980年代抽象水墨

策展人：朱其

开幕：2018年11月3日（周六）17:00

座谈会：2018年11月3日（周六）16:00-17:00

展期：2018年11月3日-12月22日

今格空间荣幸地宣布，艺术家沈忱的个展“沈忱 1980年代抽象水墨”将于2018年11月3日正式开幕。此次展览是艺术家第二次在今格空间举办个展，届时将呈现他在上世纪八十年代的十余件水墨及拼贴作品。

1982年，沈忱开始了水墨抽象主义的探索，在宣纸上尝试以晕染的墨法创作一种抽象主义的肌理，并在水墨中混合了水粉材料。次年，他的实验水墨风格初显，形成一种比较确定的极简抽象主义。这类似一种书写的极简主义，画面上大片的留白，只有一些水平和纵向的或者旋转的半圆的书法性笔触，零星分布在画面上，将中国画的留白和书写性的笔墨转向一种现代主义风格。

1970年代末80年代初，开始恢复中断的现代主义进程，始自二、三十年代的绘画现代主义，至1970年代中期的吴大羽，越来越将这一探索定义为现代主义的东方主义。身处上海戏剧学院的现代主义启蒙重镇，1970年代末重启现代主义进程的气氛中，沈忱等新一代试图将这一进程推向更彻底的抽象主义，以西画为媒介的抽象主义逐渐在上戏形成一个群体，但水墨的抽象主义则只有沈忱孤身独行。

对沈忱而言，实验水墨的抽象主义，其重点在于先将笔触从文字的书法结构中截取出来，变为一种反示意的形式要素，笔触要素再构成线型组合，从而作为一种要素的抽象主义。其次是在画面组织方式上，使中国画传统的留白成为一种形式主义的结构美学。与其说，作为“留白”意义上的空白，并非类型画题的与自然意象在平面上构成的虚实关系，而是线性结构定义或分割了画面空间，从而形成空白结构。笔触性的笔线，成为空白结构板块的交界线。在形式主义的意义上，沈忱重新定义了空白与平面的关系。（文字来源于评论家、策展人朱其为此次展览撰文《沈忱：1980年代的水墨现代主义》）

关于艺术家

沈忱1955年出生于中国，现居纽约。他早在中学，并继续在上海艺术学校（当时为“上海五七艺校”）开始接受艺术教育。1982年在上海戏剧学院获得学士学位后迁居北京。1988年获斯考海根艺术学院奖金作为驻校艺术家赴美，同年底又获工作室艺术学院交流学生奖，来到纽约。次年获全奖赴波士顿大学攻读硕士学位。1991年起定居纽约。

沈忱为80年代中国抽象绘画和实验水墨的先行者之一，并活跃于当时的“地下艺术沙龙”。早在大学期间，他就组织并参加了实验画展“野蔷薇”。之后，他的作品开始在各地美术馆展出，如上海美术馆，宁波美术馆等。1984年，他在北京中国记者协会举办了第一次个人展览。从此他开始与亚洲及欧美多家画廊合作，作品展现在世界各地美术馆，其中包括：中国美术馆、罗马美术学院、今日美术馆、三尚当代艺术馆、上海大学美术馆、昆斯美术馆、南通美术馆、证大美术馆、何香凝当代美术馆、西湖美术馆、多伦美术馆、明园美术馆、年代美术馆、喜马拉雅美术馆、元典美术馆、上海龙美术馆、美国华人博物馆、辛格美术馆、瑞克琳豪森美术馆、波弘美术馆、杜尔巴赫美术馆和柏林ME美术馆等。作品被世界各地多家美术馆、艺术基金会及私人收藏。  

1988年3月沈忱在中国美术馆举办个人画展
Shen Chen Exhibition, China National Museum of Art, March, 1988 

Shen Chen Abstract Ink Paintings

Curator：Zhu Qi

Opening：5pm,  November 3rd, 2018 (Saturday)

Gallery Talk：4-5pm,  November 3rd, 2018 

Exhibition Period: 

November 3rd - December 22, 2018

Gingko Space is delighted to announce Shen Chen’s solo exhibition, “Shen Chen Abstract Ink Paintings”, opening on November 3rd,2018. It is the artist's second exhibition at Ginkgo Space.he will present more than ten ink paintings and collages from the 1980s.

In 1982, Shen Chen began to explore abstraction in the medium of ink painting,where he ink washed the rice paper as it’s done in conventional Chinese paintings to create the texture of abstraction. In addition, he mixed gouache material into the ink and water. In the following year, he gradually established an experimental ink painting style that could be construed asminimal and abstract art. It was synonymous to a calligraphic minimalism, where only leveled and vertical, or spiraling semi-circles brush strokes were paintedon, otherwise largely left blank, paper. These marks were scattered sparsely on the image, shifted the void and calligraphic component of Chinese painting towards a modernist style.

From the late 1970s to the early 1980s, the process of modernization that was temporarily paused was restored. Since the early Republican era to the mid-1970s, Wu Dayu has gradually defined this practice as the oriental modernism. Being at the center of the modernist enlightenment at the Shanghai Theatre Academy, and invigorated by the atmosphere of restoring the progress of modernization, Shen Chen and other artists of the new generation attempted to push this progress towards a more authentic abstraction. On the one hand,  abstraction done in the medium of oil painting was gradually shaping into a group, while Shen Chen remained the only artistheading down the path of abstract ink painting.

For Shen Chen, the key in practicing abstraction through experimental ink painting was to first extract the brushwork from the calligraphic gestures of writing characters and transforms them into formal elements that do not embody any significance,while the brushworks constitute a combination of lines, which then becomes akind of elemental abstraction. Furthermore, Shen Chen allowed the empty spacein traditional Chinese painting to become a formal aesthetics on the structurein terms of composition. Rather than claiming, the empty space that is left “blank”, his works did not necessarily represent the natural phenomenon in two-dimensional space, but the structural or divided space visualized through the linear structures where empty space was generated. The cursive lines are the connections that bring the empty spaces together. Formally speaking, Shen Chen redefined the empty spaces on the two-dimensional surface.

(The article‘Shen Chen: Ink Modernism during 1980’s ’is by the critic and curator Zhu Qi.)

About Artist

Born in China in 1955, Shen Chen is a New York based artist. He began his art education in high school and continued his training at Shanghai Art College(previously known as the Shanghai “5.7” Art School).  Hemoved to Beijing after earning his BFA from the Shanghai Theater Academy in 1982. In 1988, he came to the United States on a fellowship as artist in residence at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Later that year, he moved to New York upon receiving an exchange student fellowship from the Studio School of Painting and Sculpture. He continued his studies at Boston Universityon an MFA scholarship the following year. He has lived in New York since1991. 

In the 1980s, Shen Chen was one of China’s pioneers of Chinese abstract painting and experimental ink painting. He was an active member of “Art Salon” (an underground art movement). In 1978, he organized an experimental exhibition “Wild Rose” while he was still in college. Since then, he has shown his works at various art museums, including the Shanghai Art Museum and Ningbo Museum of Art. He held his first solo show in 1984 at the China Journalist Society in Beijing, collaborating with galleries in Asia, Europe and America, and has continued showing his work in China and abroad at venues including the National Art Museum of China (NAMOC), Roma Academy of Fine Arts, Today Art Museum, Nantong Museum of Art, San Shang Museum of Contemporary Art, Shanghai University Museum, Queens Museum of Art, Zhendai Museum of Modern Art, Hexiangning Museum of Contemporary Art, Xi Hu Art Museum, Doulun Museum of Modern Art, Museum of Chinese in America, Ming Yuan Museum of Art, Epoch Art Museum, Yuan Art Museum, Himalaya Museum of Art, Singer Museum of Art, Bochum Museum, Kunsthalle Recklinghausen, Museum Hurrle Durbachand ME Collection Berlin…

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今格空间2014年在北京创立，作为一家将视野聚焦亚洲艺术生态的画廊，今格空间积极支持艺术家进入更为成熟和前瞻性的创作实践，帮助艺术家走向国际并建立其声望。我们的展览项目植根于对自身文化身份的探索与创新，亦关注艺术家在此领域与评论、策展和观者的深层对话。

Founded in 2014 Beijing, as an art gallery whose vision focuses on the ecosystem of Asia contemporary art, Ginkgo Space's mission is to provide active support to artists’ processes of developing and gaining greater perspectives on their artistic practices. With our collaboration, we hope to build the artist’s reputation and widen their international recognition. Our exhibition program is aimed at exploring and discovering the artistic practices that define our cultural identity, through which we are committed to setting up platforms for profound dialogues between the artists, critics, curators, and audiences of contemporary art.

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开放时间  11:00-18:00 周二至周六（Tues-Sat）

北京市朝阳区酒仙桥路4号院 798艺术区65幢

Address  ＃65, 798 Art District, No.4 Jiuxianqiao Rd., Chaoyang Dst., 100015, Beijing, China