Taipei Dangdai|Asia Art Center|F04|CHU Weibor: Break Through

Artist| CHU Weibor

Date|Jan.17 ~ 20, 2019

VIP Preview|Jan. 17 (Thu) 2~5pm、Jan. 18 ~ 20 (Fri, Sat, Sun) 11~12pm

Vernissage|Jan. 17 (Thu) 5~9pm

Public Opening| Jan. 18 (Fri) 12~8pm、Jan. 19 (Sat) 12~7pm、Jan. 20 (Sun) 12~5pm

Venue|Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center, Hall 1 (4th Floor)  (No. 1, Jingmao 2nd Road, Nangang District, Taipei City)

Booth|F04

Asia Art Center is pleased to present the solo exhibition of abstract art master, Chu Weibor, at the first edition of Taipei Dangdai. Our show displays thirteen selected pieces between 1965 to 2017, reflecting his half-decade proposition of translating Eastern aesthetics through abstracted forms, providing a unique insight into re-thinking the transformations of cultural ideologies.

As a key member of the “Ton Fan Society”, Chu began to explore ways of re-imagining Eastern imagery in the 1960s, which marks the initial phase of his multi-media experimentations. The monoprints produced during the 1970s reduced traditional-style landscapes into semi-geometrically abstracted forms, portraying a vivid contrast between reality and imagination, or existence and emptiness, illustrating a surrealistic vision of the literati fascination towards nature that adheres to the classical Chinese poetics of “becoming one with the world”.

 The Window of Wisdom

1965 Ink on paper 78×54.5cm

Gray Night

1966 Ink on paper 78×54.5cm

Later inspired by Fontana’s Spatialism, Chu adamantly abandoned flat-surface works and transitioned to multi-media collage compositions that primarily employed paper and fabric. Through the acts of slashing and layering, Chu emulated the visual depth and heaviness of calligraphic strokes, sculpting a three-dimensional physicality that formulate the sensibility of material abstraction. Furthermore, the previously existing representations of reality are simplified into rhythmic lines and kinetic forms, transcending the depicted matters into pure imagery. With the monochromic palette that evokes the disposition of leaving blank in ink paintings, the combined visualizations of emptiness in both form and composition allude to the ideal of “action through inaction” in Taoist philosophy, such act of purification expands the art into endless imaginations, while revealing the artist’s idiosyncrasy.

Stabilizing

1998 Cotton 260×177cm

Break Through

1998 Cotton 261×163cm

The Origin of Life

1994 Cotton 130×162cm

Through his creative pursuit of a modernized Eastern aesthetics, Chu Weibor has extracted traditional heritage from its established formality to develop a personalized language, contributing to the “Break Through” onto broader horizons that enables new visions of cultural expressions.

Revelation 2001 Linen, cotton swabs, ink 85×170×3cm

CHU Weibor(1929~2018)

Born in 1929 in Nanjing, was given the name Wushuen. In 1949, as a soldier, he moved to Taiwan with the troops. Art was his passion in his free time. In 1953, he studied painting in Liao Chichun’s “Yunho Studio” and began his art career. In 1958, he joined the “Painting Association of the East”. In 1960, inspired by Lucio Fontana (1899-1968), the founder of Spatialism, he started to devote himself to a long-term exploration of Spatialism. He began slashing his canvas to create spaces of hollowness and bulges, such creative method that shows Chu’s spirituality as he pursued a philosophical artistic narrative. The artist’s important solo exhibitions include solo exhibition at the Bechtel International Center of Stanford University in 1971, Retrospective Exhibition: Chu Wei-Bor at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum in 2005, Sunyata: Chu Wei-bor Solo Exhibition at the Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts in 2012, Chu Weibor Retrospective: Śūnyatā at Asia Art Center in 2018; his important group exhibitions include the 11th and 12th Exhibition of Modern Prints in Taipei in 1969-70, 4th and 6th Biennial of British Prints in England in 1974 and 1979, A Group Exhibition of the 25th Anniversary of Ton Fon Art Group and The Fifth Month Art Group at the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts in 1981, Taipei Modern Painting 1986 H.K. Exhibition in Hong Kong in 1986, Retrospective Exhibition of Modern Chinese Painting at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum in 1986, New Modern Chinese Painting at the National Museum of History in 1987, Modern Painting Exhibition at the Kaohsiung Cultural Center in 1988, Taipei Modern Art Exchange Exhibition at the Shanghai Art Museum in 1996, and From the Ground Up – Artist Association in 1950s Taiwan at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum in 2003 and 2004, 1960 – The Origin of Taiwan’s Modern Art at Asia Art Center, Taipei in 2016, FROM CHINA TO TAÏWAN. Pioneers of abstraction (1955-1985) at The Museum of Ixelles in 2017, Duo Exhibition of CHU Weibor and FONG Chung Ray held by Asia Art Center at Art Basel Hong Kong in 2018.