Duration: 2019.01.05 Sat. – 2019.02.24 Sun.
Press Preview: 2019.01.04 Fri. 12:00pm
Opening: 2019.01.05 Sat. 3:00pm
Venue: Liang Gallery 2F
Artist: Chu Ko

Liang Gallery will present a selection of Chu Ko’s artworks between 1990 and 2007 in the upcoming My Way in One Continuous Strand – A Retrospective Exhibition of Chu Ko, opening on Jan. 5, 2019, to introduce the master of the post-war abstract ink painting to the public.

It was during the 1950s, after the end of the Chinese Civil War, in the last century that a group of artists moved to Taiwan with the military troop. Based on the establishment of the Chinese ink painting in terms of thought as well as form, mostly painting, and the overall impact of abstract art on the global art scene, the exploration of modern abstract ink painting became a thriving trend in Taiwan. Among them, Chu Ko is particularly known for his rich and profound cultural bearing, with which he integrates the artistic thinking of the ancient rope making and the practice of calligraphic brushwork to create his unique ink-wash painting style, where the Eastern calligraphy and ink are infused with the Western abstraction, perspective, concepts, and other modern elements to open up a new world for the Eastern ink painting and art.

Chu Ko (1931-2011), whose real name is Yuan Te-Hsing, was born in Hunan, China. In 1949, he moved to Taiwan. He was a poet, painter, art critic, historian, literati artist, also a central figure in Taiwan’s art and culture circle. Chu spent over thirty years researching works of bronze in the National Palace Museum. His profound artistic and cultural connotations have led him to become a spokesman, also known as “art revolutionist,” of a modern art movement in Taiwan after 1970. His life was rich with artistic and literary achievements. In Taiwan and China, he is recognized as one of the most significant ink painters of the second half of the 20th century.

The exhibition features 33 artworks by Chu Ko, all from a period which reveals the artist’s artistic belief that the infinity originates with one and ends in one as inherited from the Chinese culture which associates rope making with governing. Meanwhile, the practice of “one-strand painting” also symbolizes the ancient Chinese philosophy of “the doctrine as all-pervading unity.” Different from the Western linear abstract art which is geometric and straight line-based, Chu Ko’s rope-making lines are full of repetitive detours with a sense of abandon, perfectly demonstrating the Eastern classical aesthetics deeply rooted in humanity.