Multi-Verse: Ding Yi in Tibet

中文

Multi-Verse: Ding Yi in Tibet
Solo Exhibition Jebum-gang Art Center; Shide Space, Lhasa

Date: 06.25, 2022 - 10.09, 2022

Artists: DING Yi 丁乙

Curator: Tenzin – Ngawang Gyaltsen

Location 1: Jebum-gang Art Center
Duration: June 25, 2022 – Oct.9, 2022
Location 2: Shide Space, Lhasa
Duration: June 25, 2022 – Aug 14, 2022

ShanghART Gallery is pleased to present artist Ding Yi’s first solo exhibition in Tibet, “Multi-Verse: Ding Yi in Tibet”. Curated by Tibetan scholar Tenzin – Ngawang Gyaltsen, the exhibition reveals the artist’s newest series with the Tibetan theme and presents a selection of his representative works since the 1980s, where the past and present of “Appearance of Crosses” is sorted out.

Ding Yi (b. 1962), born and currently resides in Shanghai, is the pioneer of abstract art in China and plays a significant role in Chinese contemporary art. Ding Yi started to work on the "Appearance of Crosses " series in 1988. He transformed the character “+” and its variant "x" derived from industrial printing scale symbols into his artistic language, forming a complete aesthetic system. "Appearance" means to look. Went through the changes of times and inner conversion, the series experienced three stages, "eye-level", "looking down" and "looking up". The artist’s creation also expanded to diversified mediums such as sculpture, installation, architecture, etc.

Ding Yi was invited by Tihho Art to Tibet for a 10-day inspection in the winter of 2021, his third visit after the 1980s and 2019. Starting from Lhasa, Ding Yi visited the relics of Tibetan murals such as Baiju Temple, Shalu Temple, Sakya Temple, and Gongga Qude Temple, and finally arrived at Mount Everest Base Camp. The spirit and nature of the Himalayas undoubtedly gave Ding Yi a great sense of life and creative inspiration. After returning to Shanghai, at his first attempt, blue was painted as the dominant hue in his works, along with Tibetan painting materials used in his experiments on materials such as Tibetan paper, mineral pigments, etc. Ding Yi's "Appearance of Crosses" series is a visual image that transformed from his spiritual experience of the deep blue sky, ancient mysterious murals, and the night of Mount Everest.

The exhibition locates in Jebum-gang Art Center and Xidelin Space in an intertextual form of the dual venues. Jebum-gang Art Center is the only existing mandala-style ancient architecture in Lhasa, which is now the first public cultural space in Lhasa. The predecessor of Xidelin Space was the Tibetan Regency Government's residence, which is now a national cultural relic protection unit. In the intertextuality of these two ancient Tibetan buildings full of history and memory, audiences will witness the spiritual hinterland of Ding Yi’s past 30-year art universe made of the countless "crosses" as the minimum units of the works.

The catalogue of the same name captures Ding Yi's representative works and new works, along with rich and detailed exhibition interviews with the artist and articles written by the curator Tenzin Ngawang Jiangcun and the famous scholar Qian Wenzhong, and will be published soon. Tenzin – Ngawang Gyaltsen believes that Ding Yi's creation is a mixture of rationality, mystery, willpower, and his experience in Tibet, that "confesses the secret between the sky and the earth". Qian Wenzhong indicates that Ding Yi was "committed to the abstract expression of the spiritual world" and his Tibetan-themed creations based in the field of nature and culture constructed a unique color discourse and a spiritual discourse that transcended religion.

More Pictures:

Jebum-Gang Art Center (Courtesy of Jebum-Gang Art Center)