Straddling Borders, Embracing Cross-Cultural Identities

2018

In an increasingly globalized world, national identity has become ever more complex, as artists choose to cross borders both physically and metaphorically, seeking out new sources of inspiration and refusing to be confined by geographical stereotypes. This installation features three artists who thrive in this fluid environment: Wang Gongyi, Zhang Hongtu, and Michael Cherney.

Wang and Zhang are Chinese artists who now reside in the United States, while Cherney is a New York–born artist based in Beijing. Wang uses Western print techniques to deconstruct traditional Chinese ink painting, creating new, abstract forms. Zhang also employs a Western medium—oil on canvas—to query cultural dichotomies by depicting well-known landscapes by Chinese artists in styles mimicking famous Western painters. Cherney, a self-taught photographer, takes the topography of China as his subject, manipulating his compositions to evoke masterpieces of Chinese painting, and mounting his pictures in Chinese painting formats.

Through different paths and for intensely personal reasons, these artists create exciting original work that represents both a confluence and juxtaposition of East and West, past and present, in a way that is unique to our time and transnational in appeal.

Curated by Sangah Kim