On Thursday, April 7th, Lan Zhenghui, one of China’s leading contemporary artists, will visit the Florida International University Modesto A. Maidique Campus to speak to students and participate in a panel discussion. The events with the artist are hosted by the FIU Department of Art + Art History and The FIU College of Architecture + The Arts.
The title of the lecture by Zhenghui is “Splashing Ink.” It will be followed by a panel discussion with the artist and FIU Art + Art History’s Dr. Lidu Yi (Assistant Professor) and Pip Brant (Associate Professor). FIU Assistant Professor Dr. Lidu Yi spearheaded this cultural initiative to bring the famed artist to Miami.
Born in Sichuan China in 1959, Lan graduated in 1987 from one of China’s most prestigious art academies, the Sichuan Academy of Art (famous alumni include Zhang Xiaogang and Zhou Chunya). He has focused his career working in contemporary ink painting and calligraphy, and his powerful ink movement is based on more than 20 years of passionate research for his vision of constructing art via ink traditions in new ways. Known for monumental, large-scale abstract ink paintings, Lan’s work departs from Chinese ink traditions through his raw individualism, (a rarity in China), emotional expressiveness, and physicality. This results in bold, varying densities of ink application and the artist splashing ink directly onto the paper. Preferring a freehanded approach instead of a brushstroke, in 2000 Lan launched the “power brush” movement. Lan’s work is featured in the U.S. national traveling exhibition titled 28 Chinese, an exhibition of Chinese artists gathered by American collectors Don and Mera Rubell after ten years of visiting artist studios in China. The exhibition was launched during Art Basel Miami Beach and travelled to the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco and the San Antonio Museum of Art. Lan’s first U.S. solo exhibition, titled Re-Think, received rave reviews in 2015 at Ethan Cohen New York.
Most recently, the artist made headlines last month at Hong Kong Art Week where he was commissioned to create a large-scale installation titled “Ink Monument” (five meters high).
His work has been shown at the China National Art Museum in Beijing; at China’s Guangdong Museum of Art; the Gallerie du Monde Hong Kong; The Third Biennial China-Italia in Turin, Italy; the Flemish Museum of Art Museum in Brussels; the Art Institute of Chicago; the International Art Expo in Taibei; the Duolun Museum of Modern Art in Shanghai; at Art Dubai; SDMOMA, Shanghai, China; and the Baden-Wurttemberg in Germany. Ethan Cohen New York has exhibited Lan at Art Silicon Valley; Arts Stage Singapore 2015 and 2016; Art Miami 2015 (during Art Basel Miami Beach); and at Art Central 2015 and 2016 (during Hong Kong Art Week). Lan’s work appears in the public collections of the China National Art Museum in Beijing; the Consul General of the British Consulate at Guangzhou; the Chinese Cultural Centre of Toronto, Canada; and the Artron Group of China, among others. He is represented by Ethan Cohen New York and Canadian Fine Arts in Toronto. The artist has been selected by some of the world’s leading luxury brands for special projects, including Mercedes-Maybach and Volkswagen Phaeton. For 2016, Lan has been awarded a returning second residency at Mana Contemporary and has been asked to lecture at universities throughout the United States.
The artist has had solo exhibitions at Columbus College of Art and Design, James Cohan Gallery, NY, PKM Trinity Gallery, Seoul, Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary, Phoenix, Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle, Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, Weatherspoon Art Museum, U of N Carolina, Greensboro; Hosfelt Gallery, San Francisco, the Whitney Museum of American Arta t Phillip Morris, NY, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C., Baumgartner Gallery, Washington, D.C., Dieu Donne Papermill, NY, Kiang Gallery, Atlanta, Wadsworth Athenaeum Museum of Art, and the A/C Project Room, NY. (Source: Maryland Institute College of Art)
Awards include Artist-in-Residence Grant, NY State Council on the Arts in 1990, National Endowment for the Arts, The Rockefeller Foundation and the Jerome Foundation in 1991, in 1993 The Louise Nevelson Award in Art and the American Academy of Arts and Letters, NY, in 1994 he received a NY Foundation for the Arts Grant, the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award, in 1995 a National Endowment for the Arts Award, in 1997 the Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant. His work is in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, NY, Worcester Art Museum, MA, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Art Institute of Chicago, Berkeley Art Museum, Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, Texas, Hirshhorn Museum, Washington D.C., Museum of Contemporary Art, La Jolla, CA, and the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., the Wadsworth Athenaeum, Hartford, and the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis. (Source: Maryland Institute College of Art)
Lan Zhenghui’s lecture “Splashing Ink” and the panel discussion that follows will take place at the W-9 Painting Studio on the Florida International University Modesto A. Maidique Campus: 11200 S.W. 8th Street, Miami, Florida 33199. This is event is free and open to the public.
For a campus map, click here.
