Between Earth and Sky

BETWEEN EARTH AND SKY

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GALLERY MISSION Sundaram Tagore Gallery is devoted to examining the exchange of ideas between Western and non-Western cultures. With spaces in Hong Kong, Singapore and New York City (in Chelsea and on Madison Avenue), the gallery was the first to focus exclusively on the rise of globalization in contemporary art. The gallery represents painters, sculptors and photographers from around the world. They each work in different mediums and use diverse techniques, but share a passion for cross-cultural dialogue.

The gallery is renowned for its support of cultural activities—including poetry readings, book launches, music performances and film screenings—that further its mission of East-West exchange.

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MIYA ANDO

Miya Ando is an American artist known for her metal paintings that encapsulate both ephemerality and permanence. A descendant of Bizen sword makers, Ando spent her childhood among Buddhist priests in a temple in Okayama, Japan, and later, in California. She combines the traditional techniques of her ancestry with modern industrial technology, skillfully transforming sheets of metal into ephemeral, abstract paintings suffused with color. Working across two and three dimensions, Ando’s oeuvre contains abstract painting and sculpture, including large-scale public art pieces that reflect the transitory essence of life.

Miya Ando has a Bachelor of Arts degree in East Asian studies from the University of California, Berkeley, and attended Yale University and Stanford University to study Buddhist iconography and imagery. She apprenticed with the master metalsmith Hattori Studio in Japan, followed by a residency at Northern California’s Public Art Academy.

Her work has been the subject of recent solo exhibitions, including at The Noguchi Museum, New York; Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) Museum, Savannah, Georgia; The Nassau County Museum of Art, Roslyn Harbor, New York; and the American University Museum, Washington D.C. Her work has also been included in extensive group exhibitions at institutions such as Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), California; Bronx Museum and Queens Museum of Art, New York; and The Nassau County Museum of Art, Roslyn Harbor, New York. In 2015, her work was exhibited in Frontiers Reimagined at the 56th Venice Biennale.

Ando is included in the public collections of Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Detroit Institute of Arts Museum (DIA), Luft Museum in Germany, as well as numerous private collections. She has been the recipient of several grants and awards, including the prestigious Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant Award.

Ando has produced several public commissions, most notably a thirty-foot-tall sculpture in London built from World Trade Center steel to mark the ten-year anniversary of 9/11, for which she was nominated for a DARC Award in Best Light Art Installation, as well as for The Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut, designed by renowned architect Philip Johnson, which is now a museum and National Historic Landmark.

Born in Los Angeles, 1973 | Lives and works in New York

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Yellow Gold Diptych 7.19.4.4.1, 2015, pigment and urethane on aluminum, 48 x 48 inches/ 122 x 122 cm 7

Gekkou Reflected in Moonlight # 6 – 8, 2017, silver leaf and pigment on Arches paper, 45.5 x 34.5 inches/ 115.6 x 87.6 cm each 8

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Pastel Cloud 44.3, 2018, dye, ink, pigment and urethane on aluminum composite, 48 x 48 inches/ 122 x 122 cm 12

Kumo July Cloud 3.3.2, 2018, ink and dye on aluminum composite, 36 x 36 inches/ 91.4 x 91.4 cm 13

Murasaki (Purple)6.19.2.2.4, 2019, pigment, resin and urethane on aluminum, 24 x 24 inches/ 61 x 61 cm 14

Shu-Iro (Vermillion) 6.19.3.3.1, 2019, pigment, resin and urethane on aluminum, 36 x 36 inches/ 91.4 x 91.4 cm 15

Tasogare (Twilight) Lavender, 2019, pigment, resin and urethane on aluminum, 83.5 x 37.5 inches/ 212.1 x 95.3 cm

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Moon Purple Dark Green Shift 6.19.4.1, 2019, pigment, resin and urethane on aluminum, 48 inches/ 122 cm tondo 18

Grey Blue Mandala, 2019, dye, pigment, resin and urethane on stainless steel, 48 inches/ 122 cm tondo 19

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ZHENG LU The gravity-defying sculptural works of Zheng Lu are deeply influenced by his study of traditional Chinese calligraphy, an art form he practiced growing up in a literary family. Zheng Lu uses language as a pictorial element, inscribing the surface of his stainless-steel sculptures with thousands of Chinese characters derived from texts and poems of historical significance.

To create his metal sculptures, the artist begins with a plaster base. He then laser-cuts characters into metal, and in a fashion similar to linking chainmail, uses heat to connect the pictographs so that they can be shaped to the support. The resulting works are technically astonishing; their fluid, animated forms are charged with the energy (qi) of the universe, belying their steel composite.

Zheng Lu graduated from Lu Xun Fine Art Academy, Shenyang, with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in sculpture in 2003. In 2007, he received his Master of Fine Arts degree in sculpture from the Central Academy of Fine Art, Beijing, while also attending an advanced study program at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-arts in Paris. Zheng Lu has participated in numerous exhibitions in China and abroad, including at the Museum on the Seam, Jerusalem; the Ekaterina Cultural Foundation, Moscow; Musée Océanographique, Monaco; Musée Maillol, Paris; the National Museum of China, Beijing; the Long Museum and the Shanghai Duolun Museum of Modern Art, Shanghai. In 2015, the artist had a solo exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei, one of the leading institutions in the region.

Born in Chi Feng, Inner Mongolia, 1978 | Lives and works in Beijing

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Jin Bo, 2019, stainless steel, 76 x 47.2 x 32.3 inches/193 x 120 x 82 cm 23

Yan Fei, 2019, stainless steel, 43.3 x 29.1 x 25.6 inches/110 x 74 x 65 cm 24

Water in Dripping No. 7 - Condensing Flow, 2017, stainless steel 23.6 x 17.3 x 27.2 inches/60 x 44 x 69 cm, edition 10 of 20 25

Milk Bacteria, 2019, lightbox, collection-grade digital micro-jet, 47.2 inches/ 120 cm tondo

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Rain, 2018, stainless steel, 25.6 x 16.5 x 17.5 inches/65 x 42 x 44.5 cm, edition 3 of 12 28

Ni, 2019, stainless steel, 59.1 x 66.9 x 37.8, inches/150 x 170 x 96 cm 29

Water in Dripping - You, 2016, stainless steel, 55.1 x 54 x 37.4 inches/140 x 137 x 95 cm 30

Water in Dripping - Spatter, 2017, stainless steel, 27.6 x 11.8 x 15 inches/70 x 30 x 38 cm, edition 8 of 20 31

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RICARDO MAZAL Ricardo Mazal, one of Mexico’s most prominent contemporary artists, is known for his lush abstract oil paintings in which he explores spiritual themes.

He is perhaps best known for his near decade-long investigations into the sacred burial rituals of diverse cultures, from the Mayan tomb of The Red Queen in Palenque, Chiapas, Mexico, to the Buddhist prayer flags of Bhutan. These studies yielded a succession of large, multidisciplinary bodies of work reflective of the artist’s observations. However, his most recent series, Violeta and Prague, are imbued with a more personal narrative, increasingly transitioning Mazal from witness to author.

Ricardo Mazal has exhibited extensively in galleries and museums throughout the Americas, Asia and Europe. Since 2000, he has had fourteen individual museum exhibitions in Mexico and the United States, including five retrospectives of his work at the Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Monterrey (2000), the Museo de Arte Moderno de la Ciudad de México (2006), the Museo de Arte de Querétaro (2009), the Museo de Arte Abstracto Manuel Felguerez (2010) and the Center for Contemporary Arts Santa Fe, as well as thematic exhibitions in the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art (2006), the Museo Nacional de Antropología (2004-2005) and the Centro Cultural Estación Indianilla, among others. In 2015 Mazal’s work was included in Frontiers Reimagined, a Collateral Event of the 56th Venice Biennale.

Mazal’s work is included in the permanent collections of The Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minnesota; Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Arizona; Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City; Museo de Arte Abstracto Manuel Felguérez, Zacatecas, Mexico; Maeght Foundation, Paris; Centro de las Artes, Monterrey, Mexico; Cirque du Soleil, Montreal; the Peninsula Hotel, Shanghai; and Deutsche Bank, New York and Germany.

Born in Mexico City, 1950 | Lives and works in Santa Fe, New Mexico and New York 34

SP Black 3, 2019, oil on linen 55 x 60 inches/139.7 x 152.4 cm 35

SP Black 4, 2019, oil on linen, 55 x 60 inches/139.7 x 152.4 cm 36

SP Text 1, 2019, oil on linen, 77 x 113 inches/195.6 x 287 cm 37

White PF4, 2018, oil on linen, 36 x 38 inches/91.4 x 96.5 cm

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UDO NÖGER

German-born artist Udo Nöger creates luminous monochrome paintings that capture light, movement and energy expressed in highly minimalistic compositions.

At the core of Nöger’s practice is a self-developed technique that captures, transforms and reflects light. To produce these radiant works which appear to emit light from within, Nöger delves below the surface with an almost architectural approach. Encased in shadowbox-like structures, the paintings comprise three or more layers of canvas mounted on stretchers and set at a distance from one and other. The interior canvas—from which the artist cuts out various organic shapes and sometimes works with paint—functions as the actual pictorial plane. Once the internal composition is complete, the outermost surface is treated with mineral oil to amplify translucency and bring the composition to the forefront. While the paintings are articulated in a refined palette of soft whites and grays, depending on the light that illuminates the work, faint shades of blue, pink, purple and green can emerge.

Udo Nöger grew up in Enger, Westfalen, Germany. He has exhibited extensively across the globe and his work is in the permanent collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver; Art Institute of Chicago; Bass Museum, Miami; and Haus der Kunst, Munich, among others.

Born in Enger, Westfalen, Germany in 1961 | Lives and works in Fallbrook, California

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Fliessend 4, 2005, mixed media on canvas, 58 x 86 inches/147.3 x 218.4 cm 43

Zeit - Fliessend 2, 2019, mixed media on canvas, 72 x 89 inches/182.9 x 226.1 cm

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SOHAN QADRI The late artist, poet and Tantric guru Sohan Qadri was one of the few modern painters of note deeply engaged with spirituality. He abandoned representation early on, incorporating Tantric symbolism and philosophy into his vibrantly colored minimalist works. He began his process by covering the surface of heavy paper with structural effects by soaking it in liquid and carving it in stages with sharp tools while applying inks and dyes. As a result, the paper was transformed from a flat surface into a three-dimensional medium. The repetition of careful incisions on the paper was an integral part of his meditation. Having lived and worked in more than a dozen countries, Qadri was one of India’s many post-Independence artists who form a sprawling diaspora. He once said, “I did not want to confine myself to one place, nation and community….My approach to life has been universal, and so is my art.”

Qadri was initiated into yogic practice at age seven in India, his birthplace. In 1965, he left India and began a series of travels that took him to East Africa, North America and Europe. After settling in Copenhagen in the 1970s, Qadri participated in more than forty solo shows, in Mumbai, Vienna, Brussels, London, Oslo, Stockholm, Montreal, Toronto, Los Angeles and New York.

Sohan Qadri’s works are included in the British Museum, London; the Peabody Essex Museum, Massachusetts; the Rubin Museum of Art, New York; the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto; as well as the private collections of Cirque du Soleil, Heinrich Böll and Dr. Robert Thurman. In 2011, Skira Editore published the monograph Sohan Qadri: The Seer.

Born in Chachoki, Punjab, India, 1932 and died in 2011 | Lived and worked in Copenhagen and Toronto

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Ananda XIII, 2009, ink and dye on paper, 55 x 39 inches/139.7 x 99.1 cm 49

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HIROSHI SENJU Japanese-born painter Hiroshi Senju is noted worldwide for his sublime waterfall and cliff images, which are often monumental in scale. He combines a minimalist visual language rooted in Abstract Expressionism with ancient painting techniques unique to Japan. Senju is widely recognized as one of the few contemporary masters of the thousand-year-old nihonga style of painting, using pigments made from minerals, ground stone, shell and corals suspended in animal-hide glue.

Hiroshi Senju was the first Asian artist to receive an Honorable Mention Award at the Venice Biennale (1995), and has participated in numerous exhibitions including The New Way of Tea, curated by Alexandra Munroe, at the Japan Society and the Asia Society in New York, 2002; Paintings on Fusuma at the Tokyo National Museum, 2003; and Frontiers Reimagined at the Venice Biennale, 2015. He was recently awarded the Foreign Minister’s Commendation from the Japanese government for contributions to art. In May 2017 he was honored with the Isamu Noguchi Award.

Public installations include seventy-seven murals at Juko-in, a sub-temple of Daitoku-ji, a Zen Buddhist temple in Japan, and a monumental waterfall at Haneda Airport in Tokyo. The Benesse Art Site of Naoshima Island also houses two large-scale installations.

Most recently, Senju completed two monumental paintings for Kongobuji Temple at Koyasan.

The temple is a sacred site in Japanese Buddhism and the works—a waterfall and a cliff—were commissioned to celebrate Koyasan’s 1,200th anniversary. Ahead of the dedication at Kongobuji, the paintings will be on view in several major museums throughout Japan until they are installed as fusuma (sliding doors) in the summer of 2020.

Senju’s work is in The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Brooklyn Museum, New York; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco; the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri; the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto; the Museum of Modern Art, Toyama, Japan; the Yamatane Museum of Art, Tokyo; Tokyo University of the Arts; and the Kushiro Art Museum, Hokkaido. In 2009, Skira Editore published a monograph of his work titled Hiroshi Senju. The Hiroshi Senju Museum Karuizawa in Japan opened in 2011.

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Born in Tokyo, 1958 | Lives and works in New York

Waterfall, 2019, natural pigments on Japanese mulberry paper mounted on board 51.3 x 63.8 inches/130 x 162 cm 53

At World’s End #9, 2017, acrylic and natural pigments on Japanese mulberry paper mounted on board, 57.3 x 38.2 inches/145.6 x 97 cm 54

At World's End #20, 2017, acrylic and natural pigments on Japanese mulberry paper mounted on board, 63.8 x 51.3 inches/162.1 x 130.3 cm 55

Waterfall, 2019, natural pigments on Japanese mulberry paper mounted on board, 63.8 x 51.3 inches/162 x 130 cm

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CHUN KWANG YOUNG Korean artist Chun Kwang Young incorporates elements of both painting and sculpture in his practice. He is best known for his acclaimed Aggregation series: freestanding and wall-hung amalgamations of small, triangular forms wrapped in antique mulberry paper, often tinted with teas or pigment. The development of his signature technique was sparked by childhood memories of seeing medicinal herbs wrapped in mulberry paper, tied into small packages and hung from the ceiling of the local doctor’s office. He became intrigued with the idea of merging the techniques, materials and sentiment of his Korean heritage with the conceptual freedom he experienced during his Western education.

Chun Kwang Young received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Hongik University, Seoul and a Master of Fine Arts from the Philadelphia College of Art, Pennsylvania. His work is in numerous public collections, including the Rockefeller Foundation and the United Nations, New York; the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, D.C.; the Philadelphia Society Building, Pennsylvania; the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul, and the Seoul Museum of Art; the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; and the National Museum of Fine Arts, Malta.

He was named Artist of the Year by the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul, in 2001 and in 2009 he was awarded the Presidential Prize in the 41st Korean Culture and Art Prize by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism.

Kwang Young Chun: Aggregations, a major retrospective of the artist’s work, is on view at the Brooklyn Museum through July 2019.

Born in Hongchun, Korea, 1944 | Lives in works in Seongnam, Korea

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Aggregation 17 - NV093, 2017, mixed media with Korean mulberry paper, 73.2 x 60.2 inches/186 x 153 cm 61

Aggregation 12 - MY020 Blue & Red, 2012, mixed media with Korean mulberry paper, 51.6 x 64.2 inches/ 131 x 163 cm

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SUNDARAM TAGORE GALLERIES NEW YORK

Chelsea: 547 West 27th Street, New York, NY 10001 • tel 212 677 4520 Madison Avenue: 1100 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10028 • tel 212 288 2889 gallery@sundaramtagore.com

HONG KONG

4/F, 57-59 Hollywood Road, Central, Hong Kong • tel 852 2581 9678 hongkong@sundaramtagore.com

SINGAPORE

5 Lock Road 01-05, Gillman Barracks, Singapore 108933 • tel 65 6694 3378 singapore@sundaramtagore.com President and curator: Sundaram Tagore Director, New York: Susan McCaffrey Director, Singapore: Melanie Taylor Registrar: Julia Occhiogrosso Designer: Russell Whitehead Editor: Kieran Doherty

WWW.SUNDARAMTAGORE.COM Text © 2019 Sundaram Tagore Gallery Photographs © 2019 Sundaram Tagore Gallery All rights reserved under international copyright conventions. No part of this catalogue may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any other information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.