Soka Art-The world's top 500 galleries

Founded in 1992, Soka Art has reached its 27 years of history in 2019. As the first Taiwanese gallery to set up its international branch in Beijing, Soka Art is committed to promoting Asian culture and art to the international stage. In 2017, Soka art has been reviewed by Blouin Artinfo, the authoritative art media group in the United States, as the world's top 500 international galleries. In addition, Soka Art has been hailed by collectors as "the gallery that best allows them to have a systematic collection." In addition, the gallery retains a close relationship with the world-renowned art institutions including the National Art Museum of China, the Palace Museum in Beijing and Taipei, the British Museum, the Art Museum of Chicago, which become the gallery's long-term support in holding important events and exhibitions.

This January, Soka Art is honoured to participate in the first Taipei DangDai—a USB presented international art fair in Taipei which features a world-class line-up of galleries from around the globe. On this special occasion, Soka Art is proudly presenting the solo exhibition of Mao Xuhui—one of the most influential artists of Chinese contemporary art and the key promoter of the 85 New Wave movement. The exhibition will introduce the artist's latest works including 10 canvas pieces created between 2010-2018 and 8 paper works from 2009-2016. In these new works, the viewers will have the chance to discover the artist’s latest exploration of his famous symbolic imageries and to enjoy the poetic quality embedded in artist’s portraits of the cityscape of Kunming.

Mao Xuhui -The key promoter of China's first contemporary art movement - 85 New Wave

The 85 New Wave is China's most important art reform movement in the 20th century. As the central figure of the movement’s leadership, Mao Xuhui resisted the previous state of “art as a tool for political propaganda” and made a significant contribution in shaping the contemporary art scene in China. Mao’s creative process has rooted in the personal life experience—while Mao also pays attention to the status quo of Chinese society, his works always return to the individuality and daily life. Mao Xuhui’s unique image symbols, unlike any other symbolic elements of contemporary art, are forged by the artist’s legendary life and his loyalty to the genuine personal experiences, indicating the era as a reference to power and life.

A glimpse at Mao Xuhui’s image symbols

The capture and depiction of everyday objects is not only the focus of Mao Xuhui’s art but also the artist’s venue of emotional release. As the artists experienced different stages of life, such site and time-specific emotions and mundane reality thus joined his creative process, pushing the symbolic imageries in the works to constantly evolve.

The artist’s most renown series from the past— the "chairs" and “scissors" are a strong representation of Mao’s smart insights of daily life: the social complex is reintroduced through the iconic image symbols, transforming into artist’s dissatisfaction with Chinese society and understandings on death and kinship. Now Mao Xuhui's chair is no longer just a tragic temperament to express his uneasiness about the underlying power relations in the contemporary society, but to appear in the pastoral in a more elegant way—in the work “Guishan—Backset Chair Surrounded by Morning Glories”and “Two Backrest Chairs with Camelia” , the symbols of the chair have revealed Mao’s fascination with his private utopia.

Guishan, a land of primitive vitality

Mao Xuhui’s art was born and nourished in the land of Yunnan. It is because of his love for the land that he has chosen Yunnan as his perspective to see the world, creating all his work at this place. Mao Xuhui is a typical practicalist, in addition to his famous image symbols, the “Guishan” series which Mao has been continuing since 1979 also plays an important role in an artist’s career. For Mao, the land has long been considered as a part of the self. He used the lyrical brushstrokes to depict the vibration of the nature and land of Guishan over the past 30 years.

From January 17 to 20, 2019, Taipei Dangdai will become one of the most eye-catching international events in the art industry. Correspondingly, Soka Art will introduce an artist of great importance in Chinese contemporary art history and academic field—Mao Xuhui. It is believed that Mao’s solo exhibition at Booth B05 will become another eye-catching on Taipei Dangdai.