It doesn’t matter that I see beautiful women and fresh flowers
They both make me empty and sensitive
They make me fresh, make me different, make me new born
I use many, many colors
Make my energy and love explode on the canvas
I have painted pictures all my life, for 50 years
I only want to express freshness
From beauty to love to fresh
Like a newborn spring
- Walasse Ting
Forward
In 1984, surrounded by his close friends, many of them artists, Walasse Ting arrived in Taipei from New York to participate in my first exhibition of his works. He also brought with him a hard cover edition of WALASSE TING Rice Paper Paintings.
Soon after, a “Walasse Ting Tornado” swept through the art and culture scene, as word of the exhibition became frontline news across all cultural media outlets. “The Flower Pirate” was an instant success in Taiwan, and startled the hearts of many conservative Taiwanese, many of whom shook their heads in disapproval.
Recalling the first time I met him, my first reaction was that this man was full of contradictions: he was tall, strong, but his movements were refined and elegant. He spoke mandarin with a Shanghainese accent, yet his words and his tone were gentle and soft; his smile even carried a hint of shyness. How can this man carry the infamous title: “The Flower Pirate”?
As a young, female art gallery director, facing astute collectors from the art market, I sometimes needed to derive meaning from the illogical, to understand why he was branded “The Flower Pirate”. I later realized that, Walasse’s “flowers” actually stood for all things that were fresh, passionate, beautiful, timeless, vibrant, and full of love and affection.
Walasse loved friends, food, and art. In silence, he was like a quiet cat, but when he talked about Gauguin, Matisse, Picasso, Pollock, he spoke passionately and tirelessly like a songbird. When he talked about his own works, he would broadcast his messages loud and clear, like a giant. His paintings reflect all of his mantra, his personality, as well as his philosophy on life: free, aggressive, and dominant; full of vibrant colors and beauty; purposeful and passionate.
Over the next decade, Walasse relied on me exclusively to manage and promote his works in Taiwan. Whenever there was an exhibition, he would always make arrangements to tour Asia, often bringing along his children, Mia and Jesse. During 1987 – 1997, when my son Jeffrey was studying in New York, I would often visit his studio on 25th Street, and catch up with him and our children over a bountiful meal in Chinatown.
In early 2001, Alan Zie Yonder and I traveled to Amsterdam to visit Walasse, and we spent several days in his luxurious home, and conversed for countless hours in his sun-filled studio. His garden was also filled with all different kinds of peonies that he had planted. A few months later, we met again in Shanghai. He had gained a little weight, but still wore his favorite suit splattered with bright colors, like the wings of butterflies.
Every since Mia and Jesse lost their mother at a very young age, Walasse had always taken great care in tending to his children; teaching them about art, training their eyes, and fine-tuning their tastes. It came as a great shock when, in spring of 2002, we received word from Mia that Walasse lay unconscious in a hospital after suffering a brain hemorrhage. Though he would eventually emerge from his coma, he was unresponsive to his surroundings.
With tireless love and devotion, Mia and Jesse spent the next 8 years and much of their savings to arrange the best medical attention and equipment available to keep their father alive and as healthy as possible, hoping that his condition would someday improve.
In fall of 2008, Jesse visited Hong Kong to ask me to consider assisting the development of Walasse’s market during those difficult times; they were looking for a different avenue to further manage their father’s works. However, they were unaware at the time that I had joined Sotheby’s Hong Kong as head of 20th Century Chinese Art and would be unable to offer my assistance. Of course, none of us were aware of the financial tsunami that would hit a few weeks after our meeting, one that left the global art market in an unprecedented depression.
Walasse Ting passed away in May of 2010. Two months later, Mia, Jesse, Jeffrey and I formed two teams. Mia and Jesse focused on the preparations for the Walasse Ting Retrospective Exhibition at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, and meanwhile, Jeffrey and I reorganized and formulated a strategy to bring Walasse back to the international art market.
In mid-November, 2010, Walasse’s long-time agent, Alisan Fine Arts Gallery in Hong Kong organized an exhibition at the Hong Kong Arts Center – I Love Flowers All My Life; in late-November, The Taipei Fine Arts Museum held From Heroic Expression to Resplendent Color: Walasse Ting Retrospective Exhibition; and in early-December, Taipei SOKA Art Center launched its first Walasse Ting show in the region: The Floral Journey-The Artistic Memoir of Walasse Ting.
These three back-to-back exhibitions in Taiwan and Hong Kong were hugely successful, and especially in regards to the museum exhibition, enabled many who’ve followed Walasse Ting’s artistic development to see many previously unpublished works. In the applause that followed each opening ceremony, many his loving friends felt as if Walasse had never left.
On their journeys to attend these exhibitions, Mia and Jesse twice visited Shanghai, and before their departure, they returned to Walasse’s birthplace, Wuxi, and held a formal buddhist ceremony; surrounded, once again, by Walasse Ting’s family and friends – a fallen leaf returning to its roots.
In March of 2011 , Longmen Art Projects and Hwa’s Gallery, in a joint effort, will hold To Love To Fresh – Exhibition of Walasse Ting Works from the 80s and 90s in Shanghai, where Walasse spent much of his childhood. The exhibition will cover a variety of Chinese ink and acrylic on rice paper works, totaling around 60 pieces. It will be the largest exhibition held in Shanghai since the 1997 Walasse Ting exhibition at the Shanghai Art Museum.
Shortly before Mia and Jesse’s return journey to New York, they also came to my gallery to be interviewed by a prestigious media outlet. As they recounted their father’s life and art as well as introducing the upcoming Shanghai shows, in a brief moment, Mia glanced at me with a smile, I saw Walasse’s smile on her face. I thought to myself later, perhaps Walasse was there with us too.
Lee Ya-Li, Lily
Representative of Walasse Ting Estate Management
2011 March
Poems by Walasse Ting
My Day
I drink champagne
I like being naked in the snowfall, picking up the falling leaves
A woman with an ice cold face comes into my mind
I’d like to see her, so I look at the sky; a sky with no clouds
Another naked girl comes out of the icebox
Almost like a white peony from the garden
My little crickets all died
The soft wind has become very hard, very broken
I’m bored to death
I go to the studio
I take a lot of colors and drop them on a white pigeon
The pigeon is hiding on the paper
I paint a blue cat
He stays with me
He likes to meow and eat ham
I love flowers around me
I like to drink coffee
And eat crispy apples, and sour oranges
I am a man, and I love woman
Very human
I paint them for other people who love beauty
Tenderness and love
I like most girls just after they have taken a bath
I like rainy days and also girls who are crying
I like rain
All kind of rain, heavy rain or just a drizzle
Because they are all very juicy
It makes me feel like green grass or a tree
And lets me make flowers
Summer wind, winter snow
Round moon, red roses
They are all around me
20 years ago, I liked to paint before I made love
20 years later, I like to paint after I make love
Sometimes I am like a tiger
Roaring for no reason
Sometimes I am like a cat
Sometimes I am like a little cricket
Sometimes I find strange little rocks
They are also me
I put myself inside my own pocket
Sometimes I catch dragonflies, grasshoppers, tadpoles,
Goldfish, fireflies, cicadas
They become me, and I become them
It is a younger me
In one day I can eat 50 oranges
In one day I can drink 40 glasses of champagne
My body is hot like it’s just come out of the oven
And I love to drink ice cold water
I’m hot and cold inside my body
In a dream I’m swimming
But actually I don’t know how to swim
I don’t like people who have love but don’t give it away
It makes me tremble and feel cold like death
Every hour I drink one cup of coffee
I love to wander in the street
Looking here and there
I keep looking at the sky
I cannot see angels, I cannot fly
I believe I’m only a half man and I will find a half woman
And become a real person
I only want to be famous for 3 minutes
I only want to be rich for 5 minutes
I only want to be happy for 7 minutes
It doesn’t matter that I see beautiful women and fresh flowers
They both make me empty and sensitive
They make me fresh, make me different, make me new born
I use many, many colors
Make my energy and love explode on the canvas
I have painted pictures all my life, for 50 years
I only want to express freshness
From beauty to love to fresh
Like a newborn spring
The beautiful women, cats, flowers, and birds
All express freshness
Inside freshness there is love and beauty
I take a bath in the morning and at night
I see sunshine and moonlight together in the sky
At night I always go to restaurants to eat dinner
I don’t see flowers, but I see many women just like flowers
I drink just like I’m receiving fire and energy
I love to see a woman I never saw before
It makes me feel like I’m traveling in an exotic place
It opens my eyes
And makes my feelings very fresh
I go to the country to see many flowers
And with the flowers together
I get so much beauty and sensitivity from them
It makes my feeling grow more and more fresh and sensitive
I paint a large picture from the early morning till the deep night
And from the deep night till the early morning
As always I have a lot of sadness
Sadness and melancholy wrap me up
But happiness comes like a lightning knife and cuts though rope
But it too disappears very quickly
As always I talk to birds and play with the cat
I can hear the flowers giggling
I wish a very stunning, shining woman
Would always be with me, for the rest of my life
One day I will die
All I offer is fresh feelings, put them on the canvas
If you see a painting of mine, just keep looking for the freshness
Big Mountain Top
Climbing to the top of the big mountain, I’m all wet with sweat
I take off my clothes, and look at the big skyI listen to the crickets singing under the big tree
Many many persimmon are falling, like a red sea
It’s a midnight blue sky
With white twinkling stars
Heart, middle, one, bunch, bright, clear
The big earth cannot see it
The small bug cannot see it
I myself cannot see it
Not knowing what kind of thing
I saw a bird, I am a bird
I saw a tree, I am a tree
I saw a fish, I am a fish
I saw a cat, I am a cat
I saw a horse, I am a horse
I saw a flower, I am a flower
I saw water, I am water
The sun comes down, I also come down the mountain
The sky is raining, I’m also raining
The green leaves mold, I also mold
The peonies dry, I also dry
The roses blossom, I also blossom
The moon is coming, I am also coming
The big tree is fat, I am also fat
The wind is gone, I am also gone
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