It is a great honor for Platform China Contemporary Art Institute to announce that “Wu Shan 2020”, the solo exhibition of artist Wu Shan, will be presented on October 17. As the second important solo exhibition of Wu Shan held at Platform China after Winding Path, this exhibition will have three independent units to constitute the narrative structure. Wang Min’an and Liang Chao will be invited to be the academic advisers of the exhibition.

Wu Shan (born in 1960) was graduated from the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts in the early-1980s. Later, he studied in the US and acquired the master’s degree from the Graduate School of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He lived and worked in the US for more than 20 years and was absorbed in studying on and practicing painting languages. On the one hand, Wu Shan took example by the principles of form of high modernism during his creation; on the other hand, he absorbed and transformed the aesthetic experience of Chinese tradition. He found the unique way of connecting his concepts and aesthetics in the experiment of lacquer materials and established the artistic style with personal features.

In order to intensively demonstrate the context of the artistic practices of WuShan, Platform China will separately display three parts of the exhibition at the principal space and dRoom:

On October 17, the principal space of Platform China will put on display the recent lacquer paintings of Wu Shan to show the mature and perfect artistic style of the artist. Well-balanced and slender lines draw the outlines of abstract images in elegant, rectangular color blocks. They mobilize the special visual experience either in the background or visibly. The figures often show a closed and complex planar space. Like the name used to denominate, the changes of shapes present elegant rhythm, while the surface covered by lacquer also renders the works with physical peculiarity and charm. The exhibition hall will display these works on a large scale, and different, extremely austere color blocks will constitute the theatrical combination. Wu Shan describe them in this way, “Due to the utilization of fine lines in my works, they form figures slowly like hairspring. I also use lacquer, so the works do not have the emotional passion of abstract painting like general expressionism. I believe they are so great that I feel I am creating an artwork rather than drawing an abstract painting.”