Invisible Room
Tang Song
唐宋
Production date
2010-2013
Media
oil on canvas
Measurements
170 x 379 cm
Notes
Art historian Gao Minglu called the abstract painting that appeared in late twentieth and early twenty-first century China ‘Maximalism’ – the works of Tang Song and other contemporary Chinese abstract painters are imbued with notions of temporality that draw on Buddhist and Daoist philosophical traditions. The thick black surface of Invisible Room (2010-2013), for example, is incised with thin lines of varying thicknesses, diagonals breaking the dominance of parallel repeated verticals. The ruptured surface of a work such as Wrong Way (2010-2013), with scratched paint revealing darker under-painting, diagonal cut lines like rays of light emanating from a central point, and broken by a mysterious, sharp, black and red structure like a mathematical instrument, suggests the mysticism of Kandinsky. Yet the work is inspired by Tang’s interest in Zen Buddhist and Daoist thought; his linear constructions echo his daily practice of calligraphy, with its vertical and horizontal strokes.
Accession number
2013.208