PIFO Gallery  is  pleased  to  announce  Always  Going  Home:  The  Recent  Paintings  of  Wang Chuan,  the  second  solo  exhibition  by  Wang  Chuan  at  PIFO  Gallery. "Sophisticated,  and  emotionally  powerful,  witty  and  full  of  thought:  these  are  rich  and complex  paintings  by  one  of  the  most  interesting  figures  to  have  emerged  from  the  Chinese art  world  of  the  80s, " commmented by Philip  Dodd,  Former  Director  of  London's  Institute  of  Contemporary  Arts,  award winning  BBC  broadcaster,  curator  and  author.

Wang  Chuan  is  a  rare  artist,  equally  at  home  with  ink  on  paper  as  with  oil  on  canvas;  as conversant  with  the  US  artist  Cy  Twombly  as  with  the  complex  history  of  Chinese  art; rooted  in  the  experience  of  his  own  body,  yet  deeply  spiritual.  He  is  at  home  in  several  places  and  also,  and  simultaneously,  at  home  nowhere  at  all.  These  new  paintings  are  a joyful  and  witty  conversation  with  the  artist's  own  history,  and  with  the  complex  and  fissiparous  history  of  Chinese  contemporary  art;  and  they  are  also  a  wonderful meditation  on the  need  for  a  home  and  the  impossibility  of  going  home.

Wang  Chuan's  history  is  that  of  an  artist  always  ready  to  upturn  expectations,  always ready  to  leave  home.  He  may  have  begun  as  a  realist  painter  (see  'Farewell  Village  Road'

1980)  but  within  ten  years  was  taking  part  in  the  seminal  exhibition  1989  'China Avant-­‐Garde’  and  the  following  year  producing  one  of  the  major  minimalist  works  of

Chinese  contemporary,  'Ink  Spot'  a  startling  installation  in  Shenzhen,  hardly  the  most obvious  home  of  an  important  Chinese  artist.

Over  the  last  thirty  years,  he  has  moved  between  ink  on  paper  which  as  Mike  Hearn  of New  York's  Metropolitan  Museum  of  Art  has  written  are  'strikingly  assertive, contrasting dense  calligraphic  images  with  an  empty  ground'  and  large  works  of  oil  on canvas  which  hover  between  image  and  abstraction.

It  is  as  if  Wang  Chuan's  energy  and  beliefs  lead  him  to  devour  everything,  to  be continually  restless,  on  principle.  As  the  English  poet  William  Blake  says,  'Energy  is Eternal  Delight'. In  'Line,  No.1  in  'Always  Going  Home’,  Wang  Chuan  remakes  an  image from  an  ink  on  paper  work  in  oil  on  canvas,  as  if  saying  that  the  line  that  is  so  dear  to Chinese  art  can  be remade  in  the  language  and  medium  of  contemporary  western  art.

Above  all,  what  marks  the  works  on  display  in  this  exhibition  is  the  sense  of  an unfinished  architecture  or  of  the  ruins  of  architecture:  look  at  'Landscape  No.3’  or  of 'Erasure  No.2' or  'Landscape  No.2'  or  'Landscape  No.7'  with  their  fleeting  reference  to the  shape  of  a  roof.  Home  is  a  spectral  presence  in  these  paintings,  somewhere  to  be referenced  but  not  to be found.  Formally,  these  works,  too,  are  reluctant  to  be  at  rest: Wang  Chuan  seems  profoundly  sceptical  of  images  and  as  suspicious  of  the  purity  of abstraction.  The  paintings move between  the  two,  as  they  move  between  the  resources of  western  painting  and  that  of  traditional  Chinese  ink.  Wang  Chuan  may  be  homeless–there  is  no  simple  return  to tradition–but  in  these  remarkable  paintings  he  has  made  a new  kind  of  home  for  himself.

About the artist

Born  in  1953  in  Sichuan  Wang  Chuan  graduated  from  the  Traditional  Chinese  painting school  of  Sichuan  Fine  Art  Institute  in  1982.  He  has  had  solo  exhibitions  in  China  and the US, a  retrospective  in  Shenzhen  in  2001  and  has  been  in  a  very  large  number  of group  exhibitions  in  Switzerland,  China,  Taiwan,  US  and  in  Spain,  in  the  ‘China’s  New  Art, Post–1989’ curated  by  Li  Xianting  and  Chang  Tsong–zung,  and  influential  Gao  Minglu curated  'Yi  Pai:  30  Years  of  Chinese  abstract  art'.  His  work  can  be  found  in  many collections, including  the Asian  Art  Museum,  Shanghai  Minsheng  Art  Museum  and  Long Museum.

About  the  Curator

Philip  Dodd  is  the  curator  of  the  recent  exhibition  Follow  the  Heart,  The  Art  of  Sean Scully.  which  opened  at  CAFA  Art  Museum,  Beijing,  earlier  this  year.  He  is  a  former director  of London's  prestigious  Institute  of  Contemporary  Arts  (1997–2004)  and  he  has curated  exhibitions  in  London,  New  York,  Moscow,  Singapore  and  Shanghai.  In  London, in  1999,  he staged  the  first  exhibition  of  Chinese  contemporary  art  in  Britain.  Artists and  architects  whom  he  has  curated  include  Damien  Hirst,  Yoko  Ono,  Rem  Koolhaus  and Zaha  Hadid.  He  is the  author  and  editor  of  numerous  books  on  art,  literature  and  film; has  been  visiting  Professor  at  King's  College,  London  and  University  of  Arts,  London  and he  is  an  award winning BBC  presenter.  He  is  the  Chairman  of  Made  in  China  (UK)  Ltd (www.madeinchinauk.com)  which  brokered  the  relationship  that  will  bring  the  V&A  to Shekou  and  he  was  creative consultant  on  Thomas  Heatherwick's  UK  Pavilion  at  the Shanghai  Expo  2010.

About the exhibition

Always  Going  Home:  The  Recent  Paintings  of  Wang  Chuan  

Dates: 20  September  –  26  October  2015

Opening:  Sunday  20  September  2015,  4-­‐6pm

Venue: PIFO  Gallery

Address: B–11,  798  Art  Zone  No.2  Jiuxianqiao  Rd,  Chaoyang  District,  Beijing,  China  100015.

T:  +861059789562    Email:  info@pifo.cn      Website:  www.pifo.cn

Media  enquiries:  Chris  Chen  chenyu@pifo.cn  T:  +86  10  59789562–8005

Courtesy of the artist and PIFO Gallery.