On March 4, 2022, the "God as an Elephant - Wu Yi Art Exhibition" co-sponsored by the Beijing Academy of Painting and the Jinling Art Museum of the Nanjing Academy of Painting was launched at the Art Museum of the Beijing Academy of Fine Arts. Wu Yi is now the honorary president and lifelong honorary painter of Nanjing Academy of Calligraphy and Painting, an outstanding painter cultivated after the founding of New China, and another representative painter of Nanjing Academy of Calligraphy and Painting after Lin Sanzhi and Mr. Chen Dayu, whose art theory and practice have set an academic benchmark for the 40-year-old Nanjing Academy of Calligraphy and Painting.
This exhibition belongs to one of the "Twentieth Century Chinese Art Research Series Exhibitions" of the Beijing Academy of Painting, and is curated by Wu Hongliang, curator of the China Pavilion of the 58th Venice Biennale and president of the Beijing Academy of Painting. The exhibition selects Mr. Wu Yi's artistic masterpieces from the 1970s to the present, covering landscapes, flowers, birds, sketches, etc., with a total of more than 80 exhibits, clearly presenting the artist's artistic spirit of continuous change and exploration, as well as Mr. Wu Yi's in-depth thinking on the modernization and transformation of Chinese painting from The perspective of China and the West.
Wu Yi was born in 1934 in Yokohama, Japan to a family of overseas Chinese educators, whose ancestral home is Guangdong Province, China. In 1948, he moved to Shanghai and was later admitted to East China Military and Political University. In 1958, he was admitted to the Department of Fine Arts of Nanjing Academy of arts as an active soldier majoring in Chinese painting. In 1979, wu Yi, a young painter, was invited by the Ministry of Culture to participate in the "National Art And Literature Gathering Activity for Three Generations of Painters of Old, Middle-aged and Young Talents" held at the Zaojian Hall of the Summer Palace in Beijing. At this time, Zaojiantang was the preparatory office of the Chinese Academy of Painting, and famous calligraphers and painters from all over the country, such as Li Keyan, Ye Qianyu, and Huang Yin, all painted and exchanged here.
God as an Image Ancient and Modern Same 96× 180cm 2015-2016 Ink and Coloring Paper
Seongkushui length 112×69cm 1981 Ink on paper
At this event, Mr. Li Keyan praised Wu Yi for "using ink very well", and Mr. Liu Haisu invited him to climb Huangshan Mountain to sketch together. In this exhibition, works such as "White Dragon Bridge" and "Mountains and Rivers are Long" are all works that express Huangshan, and Wu Yi has also inscribed in his works that "all the masters of modern painting are not on Huangshan Mountain and are said to have feasted on the world's famous deeds and then expressed their grandeur, and sang their high ambitions for a long time." Yu Liu went to the Huangshan Mountains and benefited a lot. This shows the influence of Huangshan sketching on Wu Yi's artistic style. Liu Haisu also gladly wrote for Wu Yi "Painting disciple Wu Yi, the brush is muddy and vague, and the ancient is new, the peak of the rise of the Chinese painting world". Wu Yi's landscape paintings are vast, far-reaching, and majestic, with the atmosphere of cosmic floods, chia tai meteorology, lofty spirit, and Chinese style.
Bailongqiao 55×79.5cm, 1980 charcoal paper
Huangshanji 54.5×39.5cm, charcoal on paper
In the 1980s, Western contemporary art trends poured into China in large numbers, exerting a huge influence on the Chinese art world. At this time, Wu Yi chose to go abroad and live in the United States, and began a journey of artistic innovation in the birthplace of Western contemporary art. The works of this period combined traditional ink with Western colors, and pigments such as acrylic began to appear in his works. In the exhibition, Wu Yi's works on the theme of flowers and birds are specially presented, these works are intense and gorgeous, the brushstrokes are wide open and closed, the pictures are full of tension, and they have the majestic and robust atmosphere pursued by traditional Chinese painting.
August Lotus, 86x69cm, 2000—2005 Ink and color on paper, Jinling Art Museum Collection
128x76cm 2013 Ink and Coloring on Paper, Jinling Art Museum Collection
Mr. Wu Yi, who has been living abroad for many years, has always been firm in his cultural self-confidence and devoted himself to the study of art theory in addition to painting. He pioneered the concept of "elephant thinking", and the theme of this exhibition, "God as an Image", is the concentrated embodiment of his artistic concept. In 1994, Wu Yi founded the "Chinese Modern Art Society" in New York, inviting domestic artists and theorists to the United States for many times to hold lectures and forum activities, and personally promoting the dissemination of traditional culture overseas.
Moon is the hometown of Ming 69× 69cm, 1989 ink and color on paper, Jinling Art Museum Collection
Mang Kunlun 69×137cm, 1983 Ink and color on paper
Desert Chaoyang 69×69cm, 1983-1984 Ink and color on paper, Jinling Art Museum Collection
As the first generation of painters at the beginning of the establishment of the Nanjing Academy of Calligraphy and Painting, Mr. Wu Yi and the Nanjing Academy of Calligraphy and Painting have had an indissoluble relationship for more than 40 years. In recent years, the Nanjing Academy of Calligraphy and Painting has held many special exhibitions of Mr. Wu Yi: "Low-key Luxury - Wu Yi Art Exhibition" in 2018, "Pen Walking Dragon and Snake - Wu Yi Manuscript Art Exhibition" in 2021, etc. This series of exhibition activities has been warmly welcomed by the audience, received wide acclaim, and successfully let more people inside and outside the industry know about an excellent artist who is "overseas and cares about the motherland". Mr. Wu Yi has also donated his artistic masterpieces for many times, and so far, the Nanjing Academy of Calligraphy and Painting and the Jinling Art Museum have collected 113 works of Wu Yi.
The exhibition will run until March 20.
Nandu reporter Huang Qian