Ink is one of China’s traditional resources. Nowadays the term has acquired different connotations:
Original ink (referring to a certain traditional style of development, as the one used in ink on paper); spatial ink (referring to the Tai Chi concepts of Yin and Yang and black and white, as in hyper-planarity); conceptual ink (the explanation of the connection between different cultural forms, as installation, performing act, written text and so on).
Under the pressure of the open language context’s mutual frictions, ink takes different curious forms.
Contemporary art, having a global range, arises a reflection in Chinese ink:
How can the traditional paradigms of calligraphy maintain the emotional depth and understanding of art?
The ink experiment of Ma Jun guides us into his unique linguistic experiment and experiencing space.

This exhibition will be displayed in two spaces.
The first space will be dedicated to the characteristics of “Emptiness” and “Water”.
Purely white, composed of a Chinese traditional wall printed in 3D, different from real walls made of bricks, this space establishes a dialogue between the real and the potential world, the physical and the virtual space and existing and imaginary concepts. Facing this wall is like entering a written and possibly planned space. 3D printing technology reveals the decomposition of particles and the plastic character of the composition, just like the emptiness characteristic of water and ink. The movement between ink and water in Chinese ink, indeed, leaving traces of ink, creates images. When there is only water what is left is clean and potential fantasy. The boundaries of the wall, real and virtual, represents the invisible and rare things of this epoch.

The second space is dedicated to “Emptiness”and “Ink”. The different models of geometric forms, representing the complex forms existing on the Earth, float in a pool of ink and, when the water is dried, leave ink marks. At first, we can immediately feel the relation between space and volumes. Getting into a deeper lever, we can then feel the relation between the pure virtual space(the outer space) and the potentially virtual(the movement of ink) and virtual (the geometric forms) space. We are then made to ponder over the relation between ink (representing the Chinese culture) and the virtual space ( representing the universe). This is Ma Jun creative narrative on the language and experience of ink. When discussing about ink, we have to consider the endless relation between tradition and contemporary, experience and concept, China and the world.

Art, on the one hand, is constantly trying to open the barricade or to overcome the impasse for a potential relation and, on the other hand, is searching for a more rational and essential relation.

*image (left)
new China series - cocacola, 2006
porcelain, 45x45x55cm
courtesy of the artist