In the 1980s the future of ink painting was hotly debated in China. Could it find a legitimate role in the rapidly developing world of Chinese contemporary art? Artists forged a new path through experimentation, opening the way for a new generation of ink practitioners. The spirit of explorations continues to this day, resulting in a multitude of directions for ink art. Britta Erickson

Ooi Botos is pleased to invite you to a prestigious Asia Society event, sponsored by Sotheby's and the International Herald Tribune:

THE FUTURE OF CONTEMPORARY INK PAINTING
23 May 2011
6.30pm Registration & reception,
7.00 pm Discussion
agnès b CINEMA, Hong Kong Arts Centre, 2 Harbour Road, Wanchai

To register, please email info@ooibotos.com or hk@asiasociety.org. Enquiries: 2103 9508.
No tickets will be issued. Your name will be held on a list at the door.

This panel discussion about Chinese contemporary ink painting will be moderated by Tony Godfrey, the Director of Research at Sotheby’s Institute, with the panel comprising Zheng Chongbin, Dr. Shen Kuiyi and Britta Erickson.

Tony Godfrey is an author, academic and curator. He has been writing about contemporary art for over 30 years. His authoritative books include New Image in Painting (1986), Drawing Today (1991), Conceptual Art (1998) and his most recent tome, Painting Today (2009). Since 1977, he has taught about contemporary art in a number of British art academies and in the U.S., including Exeter Art School, Oxford University and New York University.

In 1989, he joined Sotheby's Institute London becoming programme director of the MA in Contemporary Art. During this time he continued to write for Burlington Magazine and Art in America, as well as for numerous exhibition catalogues. In 2008, Godfrey became Director of Research at Sotheby's Institute Asia, living and working in Singapore. He regularly writes for LEAP, Broadsheet and C Arts Magazine. Ongoing projects include the book, Painting in East and South East Asia, and a book on the Jendela group (Indonesia), plus exhibition catalogues on Geraldine Javier (Manila) and Adam Derums (Perth).

Dr. Kuiyi Shen is Professor of Art History, Theory & Criticism and Director of Chinese Studies Program at University of California, San Diego. His research focuses on Modern and Contemporary Chinese Art and Sino-Japanese cultural exchange of the twentieth century. Among his numerous publications on modern and contemporary Chinese art are A Century in Crisis: Tradition and Modernity in the Art of Twentieth Century China (New York, 1998), The Thunder and the Rain: Chinese Paintings from the Opium War to the Cultural Revolution (San Francisco, 2000), Zhou Brothers (Munich, 2004), Shanghai Modern (Munich, 2005), Elegant Gathering (San Francisco, 2006), Mahjong (Berkeley 2008), Chinese Posters (London, New York 2009) and Arts of Modern China (Berkeley, forthcoming).

He also maintains an active career as a curator. Among the exhibitions he has curated, the best known are A Century in Crisis: Tradition and Modernity in the Art of Twentieth Century China held at the Guggenheim Museums in New York and Bilbao in 1998, and Reboot: The Third Chengdu Biennial in 2007. He is a recipient of fellowships and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, Social Science Research Council, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Stanford University and Leiden University.

Britta Erickson, Ph.D. is an independent scholar and curator living in Palo Alto, California. She has taught at Stanford University and the University of California at Berkeley, and has curated major exhibitions at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Washington, D.C. (Word Play: Contemporary Art by Xu Bing) and the Cantor Center for Visual Arts, Stanford (On the Edge: Contemporary Chinese Artists Encounter the West). In 2007 she co-curated the Chengdu Biennial, which focused on ink art, and in 2010 she was a contributing curator for Shanghai: Art of the City (Asian Art Museum, San Francisco). She is currently producing a series of short films about ink painting.

Britta Erickson is on the advisory boards of the Ink Society (Hong Kong) and Three Shadows Photography Art Centre (Beijing), as well as the editorial boards of Yishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art and ART Asia Pacific. In 2006 she was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to conduct research in Beijing on the Chinese Contemporary Art market. Publications include three books—The Art of Xu Bing: Words without Meaning, Meaning without Words (Seattle, 2001), On the Edge: Contemporary Chinese Artists Encounter the West (Stanford/Hong Kong, 2004), and China Onward The Estella Collection: Chinese Contemporary Art, 1966-2006 (Humlebæk, 2007)—as well as biographical entries for Grove Art Online (Oxford, 2005) and numerous articles and essays. She is frequently a speaker at international symposia and invited as an authority on issues in contemporary Chinese art practice, collecting and criticism.

Zheng Chongbin was born in Shanghai but now resides in the United States, dividing his time between Asia and the U.S. He graduated with a BFA from the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts, Hangzhou (now known as the Chinese Academy of Fine Arts) in 1984. Upon completion of his degree, he emigrated to San Francisco, where he pursued an MFA (through an awarded fellowship) at the San Francisco Art Institute.

Zheng has exhibited internationally in the United States, China, South Korea, Taiwan, and Germany. Exhibition and project highlights include the Asian Art Museum (San Francisco), Zendai Contemporary Art Exhibition Hall (Shanghai), Doland Museum of Modern Art (Shanghai), Shanghai Art Museum, Pacific Asia Museum (Los Angeles), The Third Chengdu Biennale at the Chengdu Modern Art Museum (Chengdu), Taipei 2010 Contemporary Ink Painting Biennial at The National Museum of History (Taipei) and a site-specific, permanent sculptural installation for the Marina Bay Sands (Singapore).

In October 2010, Zheng’s works were exhibited in a show curated by Dr. Shen Kuiyi. This year, Zheng had a show at the Haines Gallery (San Francisco). In May, he will open another solo exhibition at the San Francisco Chinese Culture Center where he was the recipient of the Artist Excellence Exhibition Series Grant 2010, recognizing exceptional Chinese artists in the U.S.