With the newly upgraded architectural space, we are very honored to launch a new exhibition Spectacle （2020.8.29）, which will show the important works of five Soka artists: Hong Ling, Mao Xuhui, Zhao Meng, Zeng Jianyong and Zhang Yingnan. The works will bring audiences different visual experiences in the new Soka space. Spectacle is composed of contemporary language and culture in its own surroundings. The exhibition provides several perceptive thinkings and visual experience.

In the Eastern culture, "nature" not only refers to the wilderness and forest, but also describes a free and simple attitude towards life. Taking the simplistic natural state as the source of beauty, extracting the spiritual essence through the concrete surface, and obeying the philosophy of "Taoist Nature", together constitute the very essence of the ancient Chinese literati spirit. The six artists presented by Soka Art each plays an important role in the international art world. With profound understanding in Eastern culture and Western modern art, each of them explores the possibilities in defining "nature" on the aspects of Eastern and Western philosophy, history and sociology, adding their multi-composite modern translations to the ancient literati spirit.

Hong Ling: Beauty of the Nature is Hong Ling’s first large exhibition in his artistic career of forty years. This includes Hutong Alley series, Portrait series, Human Body series, Hometown People series, and Abstract series from the artists’ learning and experimental phase in the early eighties, to the independent, complete series of landscape oil paintings.

For the 15th anniversary of Soka Beijing, we selected 6 particularly representative artists who embody an “Eastern Culture Spirit”: Liang Quan (1940s), Hong Ling (1950s), Moon Bong-Sun (1960s), Zeng Jianyong and Tan Jun (1970s), and Wang Mengsha (1980s). This event attempts to explore different art styles through the works of these 6 artists from different eras, outlining the constantly developing, diverse, and three-dimensional appearances of contemporary Eastern ink-wash painting.

This exhibition focuses on the concept of Asian contemporary art. Soka is the first art gallery to introduce Southeast Asian art to galleries in Taiwan, showing works from Indonesian artist Agus Suwage, Thai artist Natee Utarit and Filipino artist Gabriel Barredo. Their unique styles are ahead of their times, yet incorporated with local cultures and traditions. Soka has a close relationship with the art industry in Japan and Korea. We have hosted tours for prominent minimalist Korean artists, becoming the very first art organization in Taiwan to exhibit Korean minimalist works. This time, we present Park Seo Bo’s famous “Ecriture” series from his earlier works and contemporary Korean ink artist Moon Bong Sun’s works. Representing the Japanese contemporary art are works of Yayoi Kusama and Yoshitomo Nara, who both are trend-setting and well-known artists.

The participating artists are connected in terms of painting language to the theme of “empty cold” through unique creative approaches. Wang Jieyin works with the simple and pure deform of nature and the lingering echoes of sound. Liang Quan works with the naturalness of abstraction and the lingering flavor of prosaicness. Hong Ling approaches the naturalness of nature and the silent confluence of spirits. Cao Jigang transforms the tones of nature into ink, and lingering sorrow into silence. Shen Qin works with gardens of nature and the open space of roving dreams. Chen Feng approaches the cultural memory of nature and the afterimage of hills. Liu Guofu’s is the spirit of nature and the spirits of the afterimage. Xu huaxin ink works have the texture of jad with the sense of empty cold.

Hong Ling has spent over 20 years in Mount Huang, and in his works, we can see the fusion between his rich inner mind and the mysteries of the natural landscape. “First, establish its greatness.” Hong Ling has consciously brought the “spirit” of Shanshui painting into landscape painting. When we look at Hong Ling’s works, we see on one hand what appear to be traditional colored shanshui painting, but they are also richer than traditional art, with the turquoise, sage green, and dark dreen of the image also incorporating the colors of oil painting and interacting with the natural scenery to be formed. On the other hand, his works has enriched the colors of western oil painting, because it looks more natural, infusing his colors with a sense of time, making them more natural and rhythmic.

Through a basic study of these three sections and the three generations represented, we can see that all these artists draw on various aspects of tradition. We attempt to establish a dialogue with Western modern art to form an individual language style and revive the eternal nature of Chinese art. The mission of Chinese painting is summarized with the following question: After Zao Wou-Ki, how can we thoroughly and abundantly rebuild the relationship between the spirit of nature and modern life, while integrating landscape paintings with those of scenery? Indeed, it is necessary to re-stimulate natural elements and activation of a Chinese artistic spirit. This will inevitably restart a new future for Chinese art.

NATURE: Hong Ling derives its name from Laozi’s Tao Te Ching: “Man follows the laws of the Earth, the Earth follows the laws of Heaven, Heaven follows the laws of Tao, Tao follows the laws of Nature.” This notion echoes the unique language of Hong Ling which combines realizations about nature with the art of painting. Since the Song Dynasty, China has been seeking the harmony between heaven and man emphasized in the teachings of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism. This led to notions of a harmonic existence amongst man, nature, and society in which there would be care for nature.

The exhibition, a total of 38 pieces of 23 artists on display, includes several generations of art masters of fine paintings, both Mr. Chu, Wen Li Peng, such as Chen junde old top artists and also have HongLing, xuhui MAO, Wang Yigang, wang xiangming, back, Zhang Jian middle generation such as well-known artists, and li chao, Zhao Bo, Xun Gui Pin new generation potential artists, etc.

As one of rare galleries existing in Beijing for ten years, Soka Art Beijing witnessed the growth of art market as well as the great change of Chinese art in the ten years. In this exhibition, Commemoration ---10th Anniversary of Soka Art Beijing, many remarkable works will be shown in the two parts, Memories of the Past and Windows to the Future.

Hong Ling is well known for utilizing western painting technique in the realization of eastern art. The way in which he combines new and old allows Hong to focus his inner sensory experiences and extend them infinitely outwards into the natural world, re-crafting individual scenes through hearing, sight, touch, smell and taste.
Some have described Hong’s landscapes as reminiscent of the female body; the layers of misty whiteness covering luscious pinkness, the green buds faintly shimmering behind the branches, Hong against a powerful brown rocky mountain-face. This is the skin on the back of a woman’s neck where it meets with the hairline, the ever so slight dryness of her lips on first waking, the shallow alluring valley tracing her spine, a woman breathing; the dampness of her breath.

The opening exhibition includes works by 31 internationally renowned artists. These come not only from the Soka Art Collection but also from artists invited to participate in the exhibition by the curators. The exhibition theme “High in the Clouds” comes from the recently popular technological idea of “Cloud Computing,” signifying the hopes and expectations that still very much motivate Soka Art as it fast approaches its twentieth birthday.