Contemporary Chinese society has been called a culture at the crossroads
of the past and the future, and nowhere is this tension more apparent
than in Chinese ink painting today. Artists working in this highly
traditional medium draw from a wealth of ancient themes, but must
resolve them within contemporary Chinese culture. In Fresh Ink, ten of
China's leading contemporary artists engage directly with the past by
creating ten new works in response to older masterpieces, ranging from
classical Chinese scrolls to a scholar's rock to a drip painting by
Jackson Pollock. Their personal visions reflect diverse concerns and
influences, whether Xu Bing's play on the absurdly monumental, Qin
Feng's system of communicative signs, or the keen eye for society
evident in the work of Li Jin, Yu Hong and Liu Xiaodong. An adventurous
pairing of contemporary artworks with their forbears, Fresh Ink blurs
the boundaries between traditional and contemporary, East and West.