An American establishment sponsors an exhibition by a Chinese language artist in collaboration with a Japanese architect at a centuries-old Venetian constructing.
That is the type of far-flung constellation that may solely come collectively through the Venice Biennale, when the historic Italian lagoon metropolis turns into up to date artwork’s grandest stage. Whereas the Biennale itself is famed for its nationwide pavilions, scores of collateral exhibitions, some organized independently, proliferate.
Certainly one of this yr’s starriest unbiased collaborations pairs up two masters of kind: Zeng Fanzhi, 60, the Beijing-based painter, who’s finest identified for his virtuosic, monumentally scaled canvases that fluidly traverse abstraction and figuration, and Jap and Western traditions, has teamed with the architect Tadao Ando, 82, the Osaka-based, self-taught Pritzker Prize winner. Ando sculpts intricate but ethereal interiors, enlivened by dramatic voids or surprising lightwells, out of slabs of concrete.
And the matchmaker is the Los Angeles County Museum of Artwork, which is sponsoring a collaborative exhibition within the spectacular area of the Scuola Grande della Misericordia within the Cannaregio district of Venice. “Zeng Fanzhi: Close to and Far/Now and Then,” which opens April 17 and continues by way of Sept. 30, will characteristic a collection of Zeng’s new oil work, starting from densely-worked research of sunshine and water to hallucinatory depictions of religious motifs like skulls or Buddhist grotto temples — alongside others in mineral pigment on paper.
Ando has conceived a minimalist exhibition design that makes use of the play of pure mild and shadow to intensify the interplay between Zeng’s work and the positioning, which was in-built a neoclassical type within the sixteenth century as the house for one in every of Venice’s most venerable confraternities.
Ando and Zeng met a decade in the past when Zeng approached Ando about designing a museum for him. (Market success has enabled Zeng to amass his personal artwork assortment.) Though the museum by no means noticed fruition, it led to a collaboration on Zeng’s solo exhibition on the UCCA Heart for Up to date Artwork in Beijing in 2016, “Parcours.” Responding to the previous manufacturing facility area, Ando produced a dynamic exhibition design that includes free-standing partitions perforated by giant apertures that visually linked the completely different sections of the present.
“Close to and Far/Now and Then” is cocurated by Michael Govan, the chief govt and director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Artwork, and Stephen Little, a curator of Chinese language artwork and head of its Chinese language, Korean, and South and Southeast Asian departments.
The multinational challenge displays LACMA’s strategic pivot to the Pacific Rim — and particularly China, the place companions embody the non-public Yuz Museum in Shanghai — after Govan’s arrival in 2006. “We’re on the sting of the earth in Los Angeles,” Govan stated in a phone interview with The Occasions. “Our curators have turn out to be near artists working in China. It appeared like an odd, poetic factor to do.”
For all that, Govan harassed, “It is a challenge born of friendship.”
Reinforcing their friendship, Zeng lately visited Ando on the architect’s workplace in Osaka upfront of the opening in Venice. The Occasions joined their dialog, which passed off in Chinese language, English and Japanese at a big picket desk within the annex, initially constructed as a residence for Ando. These are edited and condensed excerpts from the dialog.
How did you come to first learn about one another and collaborate?
ZENG FANZHI The primary constructing by Tadao Ando that I ever noticed was 21_21 Design Sight in Tokyo. I used to be amazed by the structure, as a result of the positioning appeared so restricted from the surface however the constructing was so expansive on the within. I knew I needed to get in contact with Ando and began researching his different works, similar to Church of the Mild [in Ibaraki, Osaka Prefecture] and his museum initiatives. His structure can match any type of paintings, from work to installations. It’s uncanny how the constructing makes its presence felt one second after which disappears the following.
TADAO ANDO Zeng and I first met in 2014. He struck me as a extremely good individual, and I went to see his work and go to his studio in Beijing. Whereas a lot up to date artwork is direct and in your face, his portray is rooted within the Chinese language monochromatic custom, which provides it a profound depth. Zeng’s dynamic use of colour and his fusion of classical and trendy, Jap and Western sensibilities, additionally speaks to me. At a time of a lot battle all over the world, I consider his inventive imaginative and prescient, which serves as bridge between Jap and Western cultures, has a task to play in selling a message of world peace.
ZENG Thanks in your unimaginable praise. I’ll do my finest to stay as much as it.
ANDO Your works have bought for large sums in the USA [the artist’s record is $23.3 million in 2013, for his painting “The Last Supper”]. However it’s not nearly cash. It exhibits how sharp the eyes of collectors are over there. I wager it’s a troublesome world to navigate, since you’re forging your personal path. However I used to be stunned by how mild you had been after we met in individual. There are a lot of challenges in attempting to do one thing that’s by no means been carried out earlier than. I would like you to maintain forging forward.
The Scuola Grande della Misericordia was based as a charitable affiliation. Over the centuries the constructing has additionally served as a barracks, a warehouse and a sporting membership. How did you strategy the historical past out of your completely different views as an artist and an architect?
ANDO Zeng picked a superb web site. The constructing dates again to some 500 years in the past. I wished to create an exhibition design that inherits that world from 500 years in the past and extends it 500 years into the longer term, so that folks will bear in mind it even then. I wished to make one thing nobody has ever seen earlier than.
I wished to precise the profound depth of Zeng’s worldview. Guests will be capable to really feel that depth as they see how mild, shadow, and time merge within the area. It will likely be a spot for religious reflection. Clearly there will likely be large crowds in Venice, however, to be trustworthy, if I had my manner not more than 20 or 30 folks could be allowed in at any time.
ZENG Your plan for the principle corridor on the bottom degree jogs my memory of the multiperspectival spatial composition of a Chinese language panorama portray. It’s like we’re wanting from one aspect of a river to the opposite, and the play of sunshine and shadow on the ground evokes the motion of the water, whereas my giant portray on the finish of the corridor is sort of a mountain within the far distance, and the intervening area is empty. Then, on the higher degree, your deployment of free-standing partitions aligned on an axis of progressively bigger apertures evokes the perspectival composition of Western portray, with every little thing organized structurally round a single vantage level.
Your design achieves a synthesis of Jap and Western philosophies of portray, all introduced by way of structure. It impressed me as I labored on the work for the exhibition.
How do you trade concepts throughout completely different languages and practices?
ANDO I have a look at Zeng’s work after which provide you with concepts in response. It’s necessary for architects to look carefully at an artist’s work and actually perceive it.
ZENG We trade concepts with out language, by way of visible pondering. I typically spend days taking a look at Ando’s renderings till I’ve a very good really feel for them. It’s just like once I make a piece on paper. I all the time use richly textured handmade paper. I can spend days taking a look at a sheet of paper earlier than I get out my brush, as a result of the paper in a way tells me what to color. Normally Ando’s first design is already wonderful after which it’s only a matter of fine-tuning. As a painter, I actually reply to Ando’s use of adverse area. He has an innate sense of area and lightweight that merely can’t be taught. It’s genius.
ANDO A few decade in the past I underwent main surgical procedure to take away 5 of my inside organs. It’s a miracle I’m nonetheless alive. I’m positive you’ll go on making nice exhibitions, however I would like you to maintain working laborious to create a world the place artwork can paved the way to peace.
