Galerie Urs Meile displays paintings as well as works on paper by Qiu Shihua

The First Art Newspaper on the Net    Established in 1996 Friday, March 29, 2024


Galerie Urs Meile displays paintings as well as works on paper by Qiu Shihua
Qiu Shihua, Untitled, 2009 (Qiu Sh54710). Oil on canvas, 70 × 110 cm. The Artist and Galerie Urs Meile, Beijing-Lucerne.



LUCERNE.- Galerie Urs Meile announced the opening of Empty / Not Empty, Qiu Shihua’s (*1940, lives and works in Beijing, Sacramento and Shenzhen) first appearance since his last show seven years ago in our gallery in Lucerne. The most comprehensive exhibition of his works in the Swiss gallery to date displays oil on canvas as well as paper works spanning 25 years of his oeuvre with earlier pieces he painted in Beijing and Shenzhen until very recent ones from Sacramento.

In the 1980s Qiu Shihua visited France and studied the works of the Impressionists. Qiu underwent an incredible development in the course of the 1990s, moving from traditional landscape painting to find a very personal style. An untrained eye might find in his work little more than an almost unmodulated white, but his minimalist style of painting has nothing in common with the forms of expression from Western art history. The paintings seem Impressionist, but the Impressionists’ ideals - the view from out-side, the pure appearance of the outside world on the retina - are the opposite of Qiu’s. Rather, he represents the landscape - or what is left of it - as an expression of the soul. Nor are his white paintings obligated to abstraction or monochromatism. Qiu certainly abstracts from reality, goes to the limits in reducing the recognizable world, but it is always there somewhere; all his pictures remain figurative. They are radical within the category of landscape painting. They follow no systematic, conceptual search for the fundamentals of painting, of the kind Robert Ryman pursues in his works, for example. Qiu Shihua’s paintings originate in traditional Chinese landscape painting.

The painting seems to be behind a veil. The landscape reveals itself gradually to the concentrated and patient viewer. Like classical Chinese landscapes, Qiu Shihua’s pictures are exempt from the laws of central perspective. There is no recognizable center, neither a horizontal nor a vertical axis, no left or right, perhaps not even an up and a down. In a few brief sentences the artist describes his “philosophy” - and in this case the term really is justified. “For me north, south, east, or west count for nothing, nor do red, yellow, or blue, and certainly not past, present, or future. With endless emptiness in the heart there is neither coming nor going; they are one and the same. So are my works too: simple and pale, calm and empty. All being and non-being is hidden in them, completely self-contained. In the zero condition the original countenance of the soul reveals itself.”1




Like the old Chinese masters, Qiu paints an inner world. The atmospheric perspective invites the eyes to roam over emptiness; a roving that permits nothing more than a diaphanous, mystical presentiment of another world. “According to Qiu, his working process grounds on the premise of forgetting about such painterly matters as motive, technique, emotion, thus achieving pure sensuality in the void space from which the image must emerge rather than construct itself.”2 In their method, Qiu Shihua’s white paintings follow a tradition that goes back more than a thousand years, but in their appearance they seem radically modern, even provocative. They are timeless, offer a wealth of perceptive possibilities, and can be regarded as one of the most interesting and certainly least expected contributions to painting in the past decades.

Qiu Shihua was born in 1940 in Sichuan Province, but today divides his time between Beijing, Shenzhen and Sacramento. In 1999 the Kunsthalle Basel arranged his first monographic exhibition outside China and since then his work has been included in numerous collective and solo exhibitions worldwide such as The New York Kunsthalle, USA (2001), Kunstmuseum Berne, Switzerland (2005), Berkley Art Museum, USA (2008), Hamburger Bahnhof, Germany (2012), Metropolitan Museum of Art, USA (2013), Vancouver Art Gallery, Canada (2014), De Warande, Turnhout, Belgium (2018). His works have also been presented at the Sao Paolo Biennale in Brazil (1996), the Venice Biennale (1999), as well as the Shanghai Biennale (2004).

(The above text includes excerpts from Bernhard Fibicher’s text for the catalogue Mahjong, Contemporary Chinese Art from the Sigg Collection. Fibicher, B., Frehner, M. (Eds.) (2005). Ostfildern-Ruit: Hatje Cantz. P. 240)


1 Qiu Shihua, from a text supplied to the author in January 2005.
2 Max Wechsler, “The Image as an Epiphany: On the Paintings of Qiu Shihua,” on the website of Galerie Urs Meile, http://www.galerieursmeile.com










Today's News

September 5, 2020

Hamptons Virtual Art Fair features 90 international art galleries with over 2,000 artworks

The Lumiere Center for Photography opens "Moscow of Naum Granovsky 1920-1980"

Skulpturenhalle opens an exhibition of works by Bruce Nauman

Tragic love, dramatic lighting, and thinly veiled eroticism in Koller's autumn auctions

Bonnie & Clyde's tackle box may hook bidders at Heritage Auctions

Historic presidential campaign flags, including one of the earliest known, fly high at Heritage Auctions

Christie's offers approximately 150 lots from Lord Snowdon's collection

Bosco Sodi presents his most recent work at Centro de Arte Contemporáneo of Málaga

Galerie Karsten Greve opens an exhibition on the ceramic works of avant gardist Lucio Fontana

Mutant cats still a draw at Hemingway's virus-hit Florida home

Exhibition of the work of the young Swiss artist Julian Charrière opens at The Aargauer Kunsthaus

Exhibition of works by painter Michael Armitage Opens at Haus der Kunst

Sotheby's unveils the full contents of inaugural auction dedicated to hip hop

Steidl to publish 'Orange' by Orhan Pamuk

Adirondack Experience Museum hires long-time MASS MoCA Communications Director

17th century token fetches highest individual price paid at any major London auction sale

Galerie Urs Meile displays paintings as well as works on paper by Qiu Shihua

The Julia Stoschek Collection exhibits three parafictional short films by Jeremy Shaw

Abdelkader Benchamma's first solo exhibition in Belgium opens at Galerie Templon

Film reveals Greta Thunberg as steely, funny and a secret dancer

European Cultural Centre opens the first edition of the multidisciplinary outdoor exhibition 'Open Space'

The Ravestijn Gallery exhibits Patrick Waterhouse's acclaimed series Restricted Images

She gave up a lot to play Othello

500 Gallery will hold an online auction of African tribal art

What is same day payout casino?

Online Gambling Is Now Giving You Different Experience with Different Games.

The coolest works of art in Las Vegas, the world's gambling central.

Most Expensive Pieces Of Art In History

Why Escape Room Games Are the Best

Technology advancements that transform art as we know it

Staff Performances and Commitments using Simplified Software Processes

How to Spend Wisely during the Shopping Holiday to Beat Inflation?




Museums, Exhibits, Artists, Milestones, Digital Art, Architecture, Photography,
Photographers, Special Photos, Special Reports, Featured Stories, Auctions, Art Fairs,
Anecdotes, Art Quiz, Education, Mythology, 3D Images, Last Week, .

 



Founder:
Ignacio Villarreal
(1941 - 2019)
Editor & Publisher: Jose Villarreal
Art Director: Juan José Sepúlveda Ramírez

sa gaming free credit
Attorneys
Truck Accident Attorneys
Accident Attorneys

Royalville Communications, Inc
produces:

ignaciovillarreal.org juncodelavega.com facundocabral-elfinal.org
Founder's Site. Hommage
to a Mexican poet.
Hommage
       

The First Art Newspaper on the Net. The Best Versions Of Ave Maria Song Junco de la Vega Site Ignacio Villarreal Site Parroquia Natividad del Señor
Tell a Friend
Dear User, please complete the form below in order to recommend the Artdaily newsletter to someone you know.
Please complete all fields marked *.
Sending Mail
Sending Successful