The Flowering Field
(October 1997)
This exhibition consisted of 58 “Chinese” artists who lived in various cities throughout Asia, Europe, and North America. At least 17 of the paintings in the exhibition were painted within the year of the exhibition and all were created since 1985. However, the exhibition is further circumscribed in several ways. It is, first of all, limited to works by significant artists born no earlier than the year 1940. The artists asked to participate in this exhibition met one additional criterion: they are specifically and consciously Chinese painters. This was neither a racial nor a nationalistic requirement, since the artists in fact are citizens of a number of countries. Nor was this final standard a matter of aesthetics, technique, or subject but rather solely of media, the use of traditional brush-and-ink on paper and silk. Chinese artists working in oils were thus not included and neither were those working in other Western-inspired approaches such as photomontage, photography, installation, video, computer, and mixed media. One of our basic goals in organizing this exhibition was to examine the current status and future prospects of a movement generally known as guohua, “national (i.e. Chinese) painting.” . Although guohua does not pretend to represent the future of all painters in China, it is by definition the future of Chinese painting, wherever that is practiced, and it is our hope that this exhibition will contribute to greater appreciation of the current status and achievements of this important category of contemporary painting. This project was the result of a most pleasurable collaboration between Kaikodo of New York and Luen Chai of Hong Kong. Mr Kaiyuen Ng drew on his many years of experience with guohua painters in inviting this distinguished group of artists to participate in this joint exhibition. which was held both in New York and Hong Kong
