Polyphonic Writing: A Quartet Exhibition of Yang Shu, Qi Lan, Tu Hongtao, and Li Qing

Dates: August 12 – September 8, 2022

Venue: Halls 5, 6, 8 & 9, Guangdong Museum of Art

Organizer: Guangdong Museum of Art

Curator: Wang Shaoqiang

 

Born in the 1960s to 1980s, Yang Shu, Qi Lan, Tu Hongtao, and Li Qing have all assimilated influences from both Eastern and Western art during their artistic journeys. However, through individual collisions and reflections, they have gradually forged distinct paths of integration. Each excels along different continuums—ranging from expression and representation to spontaneous lyricism and objective observation. Their diverse painting languages coexist like multiple voices within a single "polyphonic movement" of art.

 

Simultaneously, the anti-formulaic tactile relationships and the introspective spirit of writing manifested in the layers of color within their works constitute the "counterpoint" between these musical voices.

 

The concept of polyphony is borrowed from music theory. As a multi-voiced harmonic relationship, it was famously appropriated by Bakhtin in literary theory to describe the "multi-voiced dialogue" in literary works. Centered on the theme of "Polyphonic Writing," this exhibition employs the structure of polyphonic narrative. Through the collision and dialogue between the languages of these four artists, it presents an inner exploration of self and other, memory and reality in contemporary painting—an independent and diverse self-expression akin to spontaneous "writing" and rational "scripting."

 

In Yang Shu's works, "writing" pursues emotional scene narration and intuitive practical expression. The interplay of color and brushstroke forms an improvisational, graffiti-like musical style—flamboyant in technique and naive in color, speaking directly from the heart. In Qi Lan's works, the texture generated by a calligraphic hand and rhythm engages in a deep dialogue between "self" and "classics" across the historical timeline, encompassing the artist's memories, practices, and profound nostalgia.

 

On the other hand, Tu Hongtao and Li Qing focus on the "scripting" of painting, leaning towards objective, detached philosophical contemplation. In Tu Hongtao's works, highly abstract images construct a complex spatial relationship. As an external thinker, the artist "examines the organic evolution between imagery and formal techniques," moving "from mimicking Western three-dimensional space to suggesting a hallucinatory 'inner psyche,'" blurring reality and imagination. He overlays perspectives from different时空 (spacetime) fragments, "collapsing" them onto the flat plane of the "present moment" through rich materials and bold textures. Li Qing's paintings, meanwhile, excel at capturing subtle rational fissures within everyday spaces and images. He constructs a relationship of mutual "observation" between self and other within similar yet contradictory works, skillfully guiding the audience into the piece through a theatrical sense of material and spatial composition.

 

For a long time, the Guangdong Museum of Art has paid close attention to the contemporary development of painting's essential language. The condensation of color and line embodies the artist's perception and judgment of the present moment. These works are history and reality crystallized in experience—emotion and reason, individual self-expression, and a microcosm of social development. We hope this exhibition presents the multiple possibilities of contemporary expression in painting, offering the public a polyphonic movement within the realm of art.