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The late master of painting Wu Guanzhong once remarked about art, "Of all the arts, music is held in the highest regard." Elaborating on the comment, he said that after classical art's initial exclusive preoccupation with aesthetics, the emphasis first shifted to visual representation and then to music, rhythm and poetics to the extent that these elements are now indispensable.
In echoing Wu's comments, the Hong Kong Museum of Art has collaborated with the Hong Kong Dance Company and the Hong Kong Pure Strings to present Wu's works in a brand new way. The museum has selected from its collection more than 20 of Wu's representative works and has them put on display in its latest exhibition, entitled "Wu Guanzhong: Painting•Dance•Music". The exhibition highlights Wu's paintings for their use of visual elements such as dots, lines and cubes, which show tempo, rhythm and the interplay between voids and solidity. Meanwhile, the Hong Kong Dance Company will stage a grand dance poem, "Two Swallows: Ode to Wu Guanzhong", from November 11 to 13 at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre, and the Hong Kong Pure Strings will perform the music composed for the dance live. Extracts of this showcase will be shown at the exhibition by early December, enabling visitors to appreciate the multiple layers and artistic elements of Wu's works via different artistic arenas.
Wu had emphasised that dots, lines and cubes were his own materials for creation, and he employed them to develop a unique set of visual elements. He considered them as "bridge-building", paving the way for the viewer's appreciation of abstract art.
For this exhibition, the museum has specially selected a number of Wu's representative works to let visitors observe the visual elements of dots, lines and cubes contained in them. Many of these works, for example, use coloured dots as the visual element of the abstract art that embraces verve and rhythm, thus injecting a lively musical sense into paintings such as "The Easterly Breeze Blows Open the Wisteria" and "Faces Unchanged". Some works feature abstract lines to construct an atmosphere and convey his own impressions. From the more figurative work of "Memories of Home" and "Mending Nets", the viewer will be able to see how Wu conveyed a sense of vibrancy and rhythm with lines. And then there are his doubtless classic works: "Two Swallows", "Former Residence of Qiu Jin" and "Reminiscence of Jiangnan". The latter two paintings are both characterised by the contrasts of black and white and clusters of geometric cubes. In these paintings, Wu emphasised geometric shapes, rectangles, shallow cubes, verticals and horizontals, which are all important for achieving formal beauty.
Inspired by Wu's masterpiece "Two Swallows", the Hong Kong Dance Company created its dance poem "Two Swallows: Ode to Wu Guanzhong", which is unprecedented in bringing together the artistic concepts, rhythm and tempo of ink painting outside their original framework through dance, multi-media and live performance of original music by a string sextet.
The "Wu Guanzhong: Painting•Dance•Music" exhibition is now running at the Hong Kong Museum of Art and will continue until April 15, 2012.
The Hong Kong Museum of Art is located at 10 Salisbury Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon. It opens from 10am to 6pm from Sunday to Wednesday and on Fridays, and from 10am to 8pm on Saturdays. It will close at 5pm on Christmas Eve and Lunar New Year's Eve, and is closed on Thursdays (except public holidays) and the first two days of the Lunar New Year. Admission is $10 and a half-price concession is available to full-time students, senior citizens and people with disabilities. Admission is free on Wednesdays.
For details of the exhibition, please visit the webpage of the Hong Kong Museum of Art at www.lcsd.gov.hk/CE/Museum/Arts/english/exhibitions/exhibitions01_oct11_03.html , and call at 2721 0116 .
Ends/Thursday, November 10, 2011
Issued at HKT 18:46
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