For the first time since 1968, the art of Zao Wou-Ki, the late Chinese-French pioneer, will be on display in the U.S., from Sept. 8 to Jan. 8 inside the non-profit Asia Society, in “No Limits: Zao Wou-Ki.”
Organized by Asia Society Museum and Colby College Museum of Art, the exhibition comprises 49 pieces – from public and private collections around the world – spanning six decades in oil, ink, print and watercolor.
Zao, whose name means “without limitation,” brought together Eastern and Western elements to his abstract, avant-garde art and was a powerful figure post-World War II. After immigrating to Paris from Hangzhou, China, as a young man, Zao became a pillar of modern abstract art in Europe and Asia.
Zao Wou-Ki, Untitled, 1972 (Courtesy photo/Asia Society)
According to the New York Times, he was one of the most commercially successful living artists in the world until his death in 2013.
“In Zao’s hands, abstraction reflected the encounter between two worlds and embraces both European modernism and Chinese metaphysical principles,” Asia Society said in a statement. “HIs groundbreaking internationalist aesthetic marks him as a key figure of 20th-century transculturalism.”
Visit AsiaSociety.org for more information.
