On September 28, 2023, the exhibition "The Power of Painting - Between Ideas and Beliefs" opened at Ennova Art Museum. The exhibition, overseen by renowned curator Mr. Zhang Zikang, director of CAFAM (museum of central academy of fine art), and curated by Ms. Han Kunzhe and Ms. Sun Tianyi, PHD candidates of CAFA, aims to discuss the evolution and changes of painting as a medium since modernism from a comparative perspective between Chinese and Western arts. It strives to present how painting kept on developing itself through continuing autonomous reformations evidenced by various experimentations in forms and images. PIFO Gallery's artists, including Enrico Bach, Gillian Ayres, Kang Haitao, Ma Ke, John McLean, had participated in this exhibitiion.
As one of the most basic media of art, painting has been practiced by one generation of artists after another, extending its branches to various dimensions with the weight of history and clues of the times. After experiencing different media, trends, and ideas of contemporary art throughout the 20th century, we can clearly see a worldwide resurgence of painting, from which the exhibition “The Power of Painting” is conceived.
By reorganizing painting practices after modernism, we shall discover that even deeply engulfed in the whirlpool of various “isms”, artists who insist on using painting as their medium, have been conducting an ontological reflection, which stimulates the artists to expand the boundary of painting continuously, explore multiple artistic languages, and innovate the use of materials, forms, and languages, so that painting has maintained a strong vitality.
The three units of the exhibition highlight media, perceptions, and images, respectively, which overall cover the general themes of painting in a global perspective and correspond to the traditions of modern and contemporary painting, namely abstraction, realism, and the appropriation of images. Globalization has made paintings look stylistically alike, but such uniformity can also differ in divergent cultural backgrounds and political-economic development. Thereafter, under the brushes and strokes of different artists, painting can still manifest extremely diversified facets.
The Power of Painting - Between Ideas and Beliefs
Chief Curator: Zhang Zikang
Curator: Han Kunzhe, Sun Tianyi
Date:2023.9.28-2024.1.28
Venue:Ennova Art Museum,West Exhibition Hall 7
Address: 300 meters to the south of the intersection of jinyuan Road and Xinkai Road,the Economic and Technological Development Zone, Langfang, Hebei
