Ye Guoshin leads six heavyweight artists to boldly venture into Europe’s largest Asian art feast!

2023-11-11

【Written by: Mo Hai Lou / Edited by Fei Chi Zhong Art Network】

Asian Art in London is one of the most important annual events in the global art world, as well as the oldest and largest annual Asian art event in Europe. It gathers leading museums, auction houses, galleries, and art-related institutions from the UK in central London’s art district to participate. The invited institutions and participating artists are among the best from various Asian countries, showcasing works that are forward-looking, avant-garde, locally inspired, and representative of the contemporary trends in Asian art.

This year, Mo Hai Lou, led by Dr. Ye Guoshin, was invited to represent Taiwan at this prestigious event. It marks the first time that an art institution from Taiwan has been invited to participate in Asian Art in London, opening up a broader perspective and greater visibility for Taiwan’s international art exchange efforts.

Dr. Ye Guoshin is the first Chinese to earn a doctoral degree in Art Authentication in the UK. With the mission of promoting art appreciation knowledge and rectifying market confusion, he founded the Mo Hai Lou International Art Research Institute in London in 2010. Under his leadership, Mo Hai Lou has become a well-known and authoritative art institution in Taiwan, promoting academic research and expanding services in art authentication, collection, and related fields both domestically and internationally. The organization has held and participated in numerous large-scale, multinational, and representative art promotion events. Dr. Ye also established scholarships for art departments in universities and for middle and primary schools in remote areas, encouraging and helping talented students pursue further studies.

For this exhibition, Mo Hai Lou went beyond the common practice of sharing a major exhibition space with other galleries. Instead, they chose to showcase their work in the largest and most impressive museum and exhibition space of the event. With the display of works by six heavyweight Asian masters, the exhibition stunned visitors, captured widespread attention, and successfully attracted the gaze of international art enthusiasts.

▲ Curator Dr. Ye Guoshin (right) explains the creative concept of the modern landscape artwork Standing Nobility by artist Fang Wen Shan to Dr. Yang Guohua (center) from the University of Cambridge and Dr. Wang Tao (left), Head of the Asian Art Department and Chief Curator at the Art Institute of Chicago. Image / Courtesy of Mo Hai Lou.

Taiwan was invited for the first time to participate in the prestigious global annual event in the art world, Asian Art in London. The invitation was extended to Mo Hai Lou, an art institution founded by renowned Taiwanese art connoisseur and curator Dr. Ye Guoshin. Due to the event’s rigorous selection process, only a limited number of institutions are invited, making Taiwan’s inclusion a groundbreaking achievement. This invitation not only marks a milestone for Taiwan’s international art presence but also successfully attracted the attention of the European art community.

Mo Hai Lou showcased the works of six influential contemporary Asian artists—Fu Yi Yao, Wang Si Han, Fang Wen Shan, Liang Yong Fei, Tai Xiang Zhou, and Ren Tian Jin—each of whom is a major figure in the art world with significant impact. The gathering of these heavyweight artists at such an event is a rare and remarkable occurrence, drawing widespread attention from all sectors.

▲ At the opening event of Asian Art in London at Sotheby’s, (from left to right) the Chairman of Asian Art in London, Sir David Tang, artist Fu Yi Yao, artist Wang Si Han, and curator Dr. Ye Guoshin posed for a photo together. Image / Courtesy of Mo Hai Lou.

Looking at these six artists, each combines different creative media, visual elements, line textures, color textures, and aesthetic thinking, with unique artistic expression and spiritual content. For example, Fu Yi Yao, who was named “Chinese Light – Person of the Year for Promoting Chinese Culture” and is the daughter of the renowned modern Chinese painter Fu Baoshi, primarily creates temple wall murals, Japanese folk festivals, poetic paintings, and a series of works inherited from her father, such as her father’s brushstroke technique. Her rain and snow scenes, which evolved from her father’s unique techniques, are a hallmark of the Fu family.

Dr. Ye explained, “Fu Baoshi’s rain paintings often use semi-automatic techniques to sprinkle alum onto the surface, creating layers of distinct white streaks representing rain. Fu Yi Yao has mastered this method, making her rain scenes appear full of moisture, and viewers feel as though they are standing in the midst of it. As for her snow scenes, which evolved from her rain paintings, Fu Yi Yao abandoned the traditional powdery method often used in snow paintings and instead utilized the contrast between the blank spaces and ink to portray snow. Combined with the alum sprinkling technique, she creates rich layers of lightness, heaviness, and variation in the falling snow.”

Fu Yi Yao’s works are grand and atmospheric, emotionally intense yet subtle and composed. In this exhibition, in addition to her famous Japanese folk festival paintings, there are also her poetic painting Li Bai Crying for Chao Qingheng, works in the style of her father Longpan Hǔjù Jin Shèngxī, European series sketches, and her re-interpretation of the ukiyo-e master Utagawa Hiroshige’s The Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō series using ink wash techniques. Additionally, her Japanese poetic painting series in the exhibition is inspired by the classic works of the famous haiku master Kobayashi Issa. By transcending traditional forms, she creates a leisurely and serene haiku style in her visual art, conveying her heartfelt interpretation of Issa’s poetic style with both landscape and lyrical elements. Among her works, the Longpan Hǔjù Jin Shèngxī created in her father’s style is a tribute to him, showcasing the distinctive aesthetics of the Fu family.

▲ Fu Yi Yao’s work – Two Xiang (2022), color on paper, 92 x 68 cm. Image / Courtesy of Mo Hai Lou

▲Fu Yi Yao’s work – At Midnight, the Snow Grows Denser, and the Hasty Passersby Are Silent (2023), color on paper, 94 x 89 cm. Image / Courtesy of Mo Hai Lou

Wang Si Han, who has transformed the fashion brand Grace Han into a global focus in the luxury fashion world, extends her visual vocabulary beyond paper and oil painting to leather as a medium in her artwork. This exhibition marks her first time presenting bags as art pieces. She is also the first new-generation fashion artist to showcase leather craftsmanship as an elevated form of artistic creation at the event since the establishment of Asian Art in London in 1998.

In this exhibition, Wang Si Han transforms the emotional expression of her mother, Ms. Wang Chen Jing Wen’s paintings—Flowing River, Calm Waves, Leaping, and Realm—into her leather bag creations. On the other hand, her father, Wang Wen Yang, an entrepreneur and PhD in Physics from the prestigious Imperial College London, has also influenced her with his rational thinking, passing down his DNA of logic. This has inspired her to incorporate high-frequency patterns from photoreceptor components, known as the Moiré pattern, into her artwork Our Melody 07. This unique, physics-inspired luxury bag is a tribute to her father, symbolizing her deep love and admiration for him.

▲Wang Si Han’s work – Inheritance 02 (2023), nylon mesh, crocodile leather, metal accessories, height 32 cm, width 27.5 cm, depth 10 cm. Image / Courtesy of Mo Hai Lou

Another notable artist is Fang Wen Shan, the renowned lyricist from the Chinese-speaking world who won the Golden Melody Award for Best Lyricist. He combines cross-disciplinary approaches and skillfully infuses the mechanical structure of steampunk aesthetics into the bronze ritual vessels representing the millennium-old Chinese sacrificial culture. His works feature contemporary reinterpretations of the Shang Dynasty Fang Ding and the Western Zhou Mao Gong Ding. Additionally, Fang has created the “Punk Cat” series with the distinct “ice-crack” texture of Northern Song Dynasty Ru ware, along with a 3D landscape series, representing a collision between two completely different civilizations.

Remarkably, the lyrics he wrote for Jay Chou’s popular songs, such as Qing Hua Ci (“Blue and White Porcelain”), with the lines “The sky is blue, waiting for the smoke rain, and I am waiting for you; the cooking smoke rises, thousands of miles across the river…”, and Yan Hua Yi Leng (“The Fireworks Fade”) with “The pagoda collapsed, who’s soul was it that broke? The pain rushes forth, a lone lamp, a collapsing mountain gate…” are engraved into the bronze vessels as inscriptions. This creates a unique visual and auditory transformation, bridging music and art in an imaginative and innovative way.

▲ Fang Wen Shan’s work – The Simplicity of Tranquility (2023), mixed media, height 110 cm, width 80 cm, depth 10 cm. Image / Courtesy of Mo Hai Lou.

Leung Wing Fai, former director of the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts and the National Museum of History, has seamlessly integrated the thinking of calligraphy and painting, inspiring a new direction for contemporary calligraphy art, where the works are both calligraphy and painting. Works such as Sunshine Over the Mountains No. 2 and Cool Moonscape No. 2 use the fluidity of calligraphic characters to represent the textures of mountains and dense forests. The movement of the characters within the artwork, combined with the abstract symbols they embody, opens up vast spaces for the viewer’s imagination, blending beauty and metaphor in a unique and compelling way.

▲ Leung Wing Fai’s work – Cool Moonscape No. 2 (2023), ink and color on paper, 78 x 71 cm. Image / Courtesy of Mo Hai Lou.

Tai Xiangzhou, an artist renowned in Europe and the U.S., is known for blending traditional Song and Yuan dynasty painting styles with elements of the cosmic universe, creating avant-garde works that have gained significant attention. His exceptional and distinct style has led to his works being widely collected by European and American museums. In this exhibition, his works such as the Taihu Stone series, Bronze Vessel series, and the rare Kunlun Ink series, along with Yellow Bell Great Lü and Celestial Star Constellation series, have captured the attention of major collectors in Europe and America.

His representative work, the Celestial Phenomenon series, has been collected by high-profile individuals like Yahoo founder Jerry Yang and Tesla founder Elon Musk. Institutions such as the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Seattle Art Museum, and the Harvard Art Museums have also acquired his works. He was the first living artist to have his work collected by the Art Institute of Chicago in 2015, marking a significant milestone in the museum’s 140-year history.

▲ The work of Tai Xiangzhou – Heavenly Phenomenon – One in Ten Thousand, 2023, gold silk and ink on paper, 346×158 cm. Image / Courtesy of Mo Hai Lou.

The artist Ren Tianjin has broken away from traditional ink painting to create a unique style of his own. His work blends the essence of various Eastern and Western aesthetic theories and creative practices, resulting in a seamlessly crafted piece of art. His work Eastern Wind III, created in 2019, won the prestigious Art Award at the 2023 Asia Art Week.

This exhibition of the artist’s works has been carefully curated by Dr. Ye Guoshin of Mo Hai Lou. The selected masterpieces, meticulously chosen for their excellence, mark the debut of this groundbreaking invited exhibition. It is a brilliant gathering of art, hosted by a renowned art authority organization both domestically and internationally, with the guidance of a well-known and passionate curator. This exhibition brings dazzling sparks and a rich visual feast to the London Asian Art Week, while also opening up opportunities for outstanding Taiwanese artists to develop on the international art stage. It paves the way for Taiwanese artistic aesthetics to expand its spirit and value in the global market.

▲From left: Artist Wang Sihan, curator Dr. Ye Guoxin, and artist Fu Yiyao pose in front of Fu’s artwork Time. Image / Courtesy of Mo Hai Lou.

來源 : Fei Chi Zhong Art Network

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