Overview

In my art, I try to explore the origins of landscape painting, attempting to return to that primordial, awestruck state of mind when human beings were facing nature. With this as a point of departure, an artist can eventually unfold a journey to a place that the viewer has never been before.

 

—Tai Xiangzhou

Tai Xiangzhou was born in 1968 to a scholarly family in Yinchuan, Ningxia, the former capital of the Tangut Xixia kingdom (1038-1227). During his childhood, he studied calligraphy with the exiled master Hu Gongshi (1912-1997). He further pursued the study of Chinese traditional culture with the prominent mentor Feng Qiyong (1924-2017). To enhance the depth of his art, Tai proceeded to earn a doctorate from Tsinghua University with the philosopher Bao Lin. As an artist, as well as an academic scholar, he published his dissertation Celestial Tales, which retells the history of Chinese landscape representations by delving into their origins in classical cosmology, particularly its elaborate systems of correspondence between the celestial, terrestrial, and human realms, earning increasing recognition internationally.

 

Tai has long concentrated on rejuvenating the idealistic forms of traditional Chinese landscape painting. His dedication to the origin and development of “Mountain and Water Representation” (Shan Shui Tu Xiang) has attracted attention from prominent eyes in the field of art. His artworks are largely based on his artistic ideologies of monumental, classicizing landscapes that envelop the vast scope of contemporary human knowledge and experience. His earlier works faithfully harmonize with traditional landscape painting from Song Dynasty (960-1279), which is a golden age for both pictorial and astral arts. From 2013 and on, with plentiful researches Tai has done for his doctoral dissertation, he further expands his perspectives of art creations into cosmology, astrology, and how they intertwine with the aesthetics of painting. His reputed series Celestial Tales,and many others,can be found in the collection of the university museums of Harvard, Princeton, and Yale. Because of their ability to invite viewers and readers to interact with them corporeally, ritualistically, Tai’s artworks and scholarly writings are frequently discussed in art history classes at distinguished universities.

 

The work can be found in the publication Paintings at the Art Institute of Chicago: Highlights of the Collection. In addition, Tai’s works also appear in the collection of Freer Gallery of Art, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art Brooklyn Museum, Asian Art museum San Francisco, Nasher Museum of Art, Seattle Art Museum, Arthur M. Sackler Museum of Art and Archaeology at Peking University, Museum of the Official Provisional Municipal Council of Macau, Zhonghua Book Company, and many more institutions.

Works
Biography

Education

 

2006 - 2012
Ph.D., Department of Painting, Academy of Arts & Design, 
  Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
1999 - 2001
Department of Digital Media, Media Design School, Auckland, 
 
New Zealand
1991 - 1996
Studied the mounting and restoration of ancient Chinese 
 
calligraphy and paintings under Cui Yurun and Li Zhenjiang.
1987
Studied Chinese classics and calligraphy under Feng Qiyong
1975 - 1979 Studied Chinese calligraphy with Hu Gongshi and Wang Wenjun

 

Solo Exhibition

 

2021 Cosmoscapes: From Nothing to Being, Fu Qiumeng Fine Art, New York, USA
  Cosmoscapes: Ink Paintings by Tai Xiangzhou, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, USA
2017 One with the Universe - Tai Xiangzhou and Zhang Yirong Ink Painting, Alisan Fine Arts, Hong Kong
  SPECULATIVE COSMOLOGIES, Tai Xiangzhou Ink Studio, Beijing, China
  Celestial Law, Tokyo Gallery+BTAP, Tokyo, Japan
2016 Celestial Tales, Yi&C. Contemporary Art, Taipei, Taiwan
2015 Celestial Tales, Paul Kasmin Gallery, New York, USA
2014 Knowing Heaven and Earth through Observation: Chinese Ink 
  Paintings by Tai Xiangzhou, Civic and Municipal Affairs Bureau Temporary Exhibitions Gallery, Macau S.A.R., China
2013 Magnificence Within: New Ink Paintings by Tai Xiangzhou, The Chinese Porcelain Company, New York, USA
2012 Mind Without Discrimination, Plum Blossoms Gallery, Hong Kong S.A.R., China
  Transcending Reality: New Ink Paintings by Tai Xiangzhou, The Chinese Porcelain Company, New York, USA
2011 Homocentric Objective: Landscape Paintings of Tai Xiangzhou, Arthur M. Sackler Museum of Art and Archaeology
  at Peking University, Beijing, China 
  Celestial Tales: Ink Paintings by Tai Xiangzhou, 798 Art Bridge Gallery, Beijing, China

 

Group Exhibition

 

2022

The Magic of Zen, New York United Nations Header Headquarters, New York, USA

2019 Foresights: Transformation between tradition and future, Guardian Art Center, Beijing, China
  Contempoerary Chinese Art Exhibition: Arts of China Gallery Reopening, Brooklyn Museum, New York, USA
  Permanent Collection, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, USA
  Recent Aquisitions, Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, USA
  Shang Shan Tang Collection, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicaog, USA
  Chinese Literati Art, Nelsin-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, USA
  Permanent Collection, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, USA
  Painted Screen: Tradition and Future, Suzhou Museum, Suzhou, China
  Everlasting like the Heavens: The Culture and Arts of the Zhou, Qin, Han, and Tang, Tsinghua University Art Museum, Beijing, China
2018 Splendors of the sun and moon, Museo Querini Stampalia Fondazione, Venice, Italy
  5th Neo Moroism, Tsinghua University Art Museum, Beijing, China
  Intersection - International art and culture, Arthur M. Sackler Museum of Art and Archaeology at Peking University, Beijing, China
  Ink Worlds: Contemporary Chinese Painting from the Collection of Akiko Yamazaki and Jerry Yang, Cantor Arts Center, Stanford, USA
  Mirroring China’s Past: Emperors and Their Bronzes, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, USA
  Chinese Abstraction at Art Basel Hong Kong 2018, Alisan Fine Arts, Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, Hong Kong
2017 Ink Asia, Ink Studio, Hong Kong
  West Bund, Ink Studio, Shanghai
  Cloudy Depths: Four Artists and Their Take On Neo - Moroism, 
  Tokyo Gallery, Beijing, China
  Shuimo, Sotheby’s S2 Gallery, New York, USA

 

 

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